Features Added in Visual COBOL 2.3 Update 1

Support for COBOL in Visual Studio has been enhanced in the following areas:

• The Go To location and Go To Procedure Division commands are now available from the Edit menu. In addition, the Go To Procedure Division has a shortcut key - Ctrl+K, Ctrl+J.
• Object Browser - now provides support for .NET COBOL code. You can view the members of objects in your project and the definition of classes and methods as specified by the XML documentation comments in your code. The window also provides support for the Go To Definition command.
• A new search option, Current COBOL Program, has been added to the Find in Files dialog box. This enables you to search in the COBOL program currently opened in the editor and in any copybooks referenced by that program.
• Solution Explorer - a new context menu command, Add Folder to Copybook Paths, is now available for the subfolders of your projects. This enables you to add the subfolders to the copybook path of the project.

COBOL editor:

• Line numbers - a new option for configuring the increment for the COBOL and the standard line numbers when you use Renumber and Unnumber has been added. You can specify the increment from Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Line Numbering.
• Outlining - a new IDE option enables you to switch outlining in the COBOL editor on or off. See the Enable Outlining option available on the Advanced page in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL.
• Program breakpoints - a new context menu command, Add COBOL Program Breakpoint, enables you to set program breakpoints directly from the editor.

There are new options and new configuration pages in the IDE preferences:

• Autocorrect - a new preferences page in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL.
• Quick Actions- a new preferences page in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL (Visual Studio 2015 only).

Debugging:

• It is now possible to examine object reference data items as you are debugging native Object Oriented COBOL applications. The debug tooltip now displays the object's instance data provided that the debug information for the object's class is available.

This release provides support for automatic connection recovery to an active Java application server when an enterprise server region is restarted. This applies to COBOL resource adapters.

This release provides support for performing code analysis at the command line using Microsoft's MSBuild utility which enables the integration of code analysis in CI frameworks.

Support is available for various MSBuild parameters. You can use MSBuild with the /p switch and with the following Micro Focus-specific command line options:

• • RunMicroFocusCodeAnalysisAfterBuild - controls whether code analysis is performed with MSBuild or not regardless of what code analysis options are specified the project's properties.
  • ActiveRulesets - specifies which rule sets should be used when running code analysis from the command line.

The code coverage reports are now integrated with the IDE and with the editor. Features include:

• A new Code Coverage window showing the statistics of what percentage of the code has executed.
• Navigation from the Code Coverage window to the missed and covered blocks in the editor.
• Colorization in the editor of blocks that were executed (covered blocks) or not (missed blocks).

The following Compiler directives contain new parameters in this release:

• ILMAIN - you now specify the main entry point for the executable program, which can be specified either as class-name::method-name, or just as method-name. For example, ILMAIN"classA::methodB" or ILMAIN"methodB". The first format can be used to distinguish between multiple methods with the same name in different classes.
• OOCTRL - a new parameter, +/-A, as been added. Set this parameter to -A to allow ActiveX controls in your COBOL application to use classes and methods in the OLE class library. The default is +A, which does not allow it.

This release provides improved security and increased support for more file types. Features include:

• Certain aspects of Enterprise Server security are honored when you attempt to access data sets. If the Enterprise Server region has security enabled, logon details must be authenticated before you can access the data set. If the details are unable to be authenticated, access is denied.
• When using a record layout, certain data is now validated at field level (to ensure the contents is compatible with its picture string ) and record level (to ensure the record length matches the layout size).
• Full editing support has been added for variable block sequential files and relative files. Full editing is also available for line sequential files, as long as they do not contain any binary data.

This release provides the following new features:

• Demonstrations for using OpenESQL in .NET applications. To view these demos, see the SQL demonstrations in the Visual COBOL Samples browser.
• Support for the Oracle fully managed ODP.NET driver.

The version of the Compatibility AddPack for Visual COBOL released with Visual COBOL 2.3 Update 1 enables you to give your Dialog System applications a refreshed user interface. Features include:

• Support for a modern look and feel for Dialog System applications.

  Dialog System now supports Microsoft's visual styles for controls and fonts to give your existing Dialog System applications a modern look that is native to the Windows version the applications are running on.

  You use a new environment variable, MFVSSW, to switch the visual styles on. Alternatively, for applications that compile to an executable, to switch the new styles, you can add an application manifest file to the applications' project files.

  See the section Modernizing Dialog System Applications in your product help for details on how to enable the visual styles, and for information about any possible changes in behavior or appearance of the common controls.

• A modern look and feel of the Dialog System painter.

  There are new configuration options in the Dialog System painter for applying the visual styles and fonts to the painter.

• Visual Studio project templates for creating Dialog System applications with a modern look out-of-the box.
  The Compatibility AddPack for Visual COBOL now installs the following new project templates:

  • Dialog System Application (Modern) for creating Dialog System applications that use Microsoft's visual styles by default.
  • Dialog System Application (Classic) for creating Dialog System applications that use the classic fonts and look.
• Additional samples:

  All of the Dialog System samples previously available with Net Express are now included with the Compatibility AddPack for Visual COBOL. The samples have been converted to Visual Studio solutions.

For more information see the section Modernizing Dialog System Applications in your product help and the Release Notes for the Compatibility AddPack for Visual COBOL.

This release includes various improvements in the IntelliSense support for COBOL in the following areas:

• Native COBOL - support is now available for OCCURS statements
• Managed COBOL - suggestions are now available in the working storage section and in the following scenarios:
  • Arithmetic expressions in method arguments
  • Casting variables and some expressions
  • Creating arrays using the TABLE OF expression and indexers
  • Generics
  • Implements and inherits
  • Type name filtering in constructs and attributes
  • Managed type headers, method heathers and index headers.
  • Nested types
  • Signature help (Visual Studio)
  • SIZE OF expressions
  • String concatenations
  • TYPE OF constructs
  • Unqualified members access - using the SELF:: or SUPER:: syntax
• Support for float literals has been enhanced.
• Suggestions are now available for more COBOL verbs such as TRY and RAISE (in managed COBOL) and EXAMINE, INSPECT, SEARCH, GO TO, INITIALIZE, INVOKE, and UNLOCK (in native COBOL).
• There are new IDE configuration settings for inserting suggestions and for case handling.

In addition, the Visual Studio editor provides the following new features:

• AutoCorrect - you can configure the editor to automatically fix the most frequently misspelled words. You use the IDE preferences to specify a list of words that you sometimes mistype, and the correct spellings for them. Whenever you misspell that word, the editor automatically replaces it with correct version.
• Light bulbs support in Visual Studio 2015 - there are new quick actions using the light bulb feature that help you quickly change in the following scenarios:
  • Convert to COBOL Syntax - offers to convert a .NET type to its equivalent COBOL predefined type. For example, this will offer an option to convert System.UInt64 to binary-double unsigned. Converting .NET types to the COBOL predefined types helps you write platform independent applications which you can easily export from Visual Studio and edit with Visual COBOL for Eclipse.

    This quick action is only available for managed COBOL code in the standard or the expanded copybook view (if it is not in the read-only mode). It is not available in standalone copybooks.

  • Extract to Copybook - takes the code you have selected in the editor and moves it to a new copybook file in your project.
  • Simplify name Type - enables you to simplify the names of .NET types by removing the fully qualified namespaces when the simplified name can be resolved without ambiguity. For example, you can change System.String to String.

• A new indexed file format, IDXFORMAT12, has been introduced to improve file maintenance and recovery procedures when using the rebuild utility. This file format is similar in structure and use to IDXFORMAT8. Where the two formats differ is that an IDXFORMAT12 file has an accompanying side file (.idx file) containing the indexed key information.

  You can use this type of file with the new rebuild /q option. This rebuild process is considerably quicker than other rebuild processes such as a data scrape or rebuild /p.

• Faster SORT operations for fixed block records - when using the DFSORT emulation, the performance when sorting fixed block records has greatly improved.

The following library routines are new in this release:

• CBL_CODESET_SET_MAPPING - enables you to change the codeset in effect.
• CBL_RUNTIME_ERROR - forces an application to terminate with a run-time error condition.
• PC_PRINTER_INFO_DOTNET (.NET COBOL only) - enables the access to the native Hdc for a printer.

This release provides the following enhancements:

• Updates to the test runner command line options:
  • Using the -testcases: option, you can now specify a list of test cases to execute.
  • The new -report:markdown option enables you to produce test reports in github style markdown format (.md).

    You can use various Third-Party utilities such as pandoc to convert .md files into HTML or PDF format.

• Support for running test suites using dynamic metadata - you use an entry point in the test case and, when it is called during the preparation stage of the test case, you can change various fields exposed through mfunit.cpy to update the metadata of the test case.

  This is an alternative to specifying metadata for a test case in the text fixture file (.mfu).

• Support is now available for creating and debugging test cases written in procedural managed COBOL (procedural code compiled as managed). The following new test runners are supplied:
  • mfurunil, for .NET COBOL code
  • mfurunj and cobmfurunj for JVM COBOL code.

The following enhancements have been made to the managed COBOL syntax:

• You can now create generic iterators.
• You can now use the Profiler utility to obtain detailed statistics on the run-time performance of managed COBOL applications.

The following items are new features of the native COBOL syntax:

Class condition tests

New and updated class condition tests are available for DBCS, KANJI, and JAPANESE.

The product Help now includes a quick and easy to use syntax guide for developers who need to learn OO COBOL syntax when modernizing COBOL applications for the Java or .NET platforms. The guide includes side-by-side equivalent syntax for COBOL, C#, VB and Java.

Visual COBOL support on Microsoft Azure has been updated to version 2.8 of the Microsoft Azure SDK.