Creating Intermediate Code Files

These files are independent of both the chip-set and operating system, and are thus highly portable to other platforms. They cannot be shared between processes; if two different executables call, at the same time, a subprogram compiled to intermediate code, a separate copy of that subprogram is loaded into each process's virtual memory space, and run.

Intermediate code files are dynamically loaded and interpreted by the run-time system. Because the intermediate code is interpreted by the run-time system, intermediate code files generally execute slower than other executable file formats.

You can create an intermediate code file using the Compiler directly. There is no need to link the program. However, to run the program you need to do one of the following:

• Run the program using the cobrun program (or cobrun_t for multi-threaded applications)
• Create a system executable file that calls the program

You can compile the source code file myprog.cbl to intermediate code as follows:

cob myprog.cbl

or

cob -i myprog.cbl

This creates an intermediate code file called myprog.int.

The command:

cob -a myprog.cbl

also creates an intermediate code file, along with files for use by Animator.