Introduction

Throughout the rest of this chapter the word "application" is used to describe the product you want to ship to your users; the word "program" is used specifically to describe the programs that make up an application.

With Visual COBOL you can create applications that consist of any combination of:

• Callable shared objects. These are executable files in a system format
• Intermediate or generated code files. These are executable files in a proprietary format
• Shared libraries or linked programs. These enable you to create applications in a system executable format

Each of the options presented here has its advantages and disadvantages.

When you create an application, you need to consider the following:

• How you want to present the package to your users
• Whether application speed is more important than application portability
• Whether you want your application to appear to your users in the same format as other applications on the target system

The following sections describe the differences between the executable file types, and between the different methods of packaging your applications.

For information on using the Cob utility, see COBOL System Interface (Cob). If you are working in 64-bit mode, you should also see Working in 32-bit and 64-bit Modes.