Sybase Considerations

Before using Sybase, you must make the following change to your system:

In the Sybase-supplied copybooks cobpub.cbl and sybhesql.cbl, change all COMP data items to COMP-5.

If you are troubleshooting Sybase problems, consider the following:

If CP is not used with COBSQL to locate copybooks, the copybook to be brought in by the Sybase precompiler needs to be fully qualified. The Sybase precompiler does not search for any extensions.
If the Sybase precompiler has problems locating the correct language to use to report messages on the client, check that the Sybase file, locales.dat is configured correctly.
If the default setting for the client Operating System has been configured, but Sybase still reports national locale support errors, use the LANG environment variable to override the setting in the locales.dat file.

For example if the Windows client was causing problems and the locales.dat file contained the following setting for Windows:
```
[NT]
locale = default, us_english, iso_1
locale = enu, us_english, iso_1
locale = fra, french, iso_1
locale = deu, german, iso_1
```
then the LANG setting for English would be:
```
LANG=enu
```

It can be difficult to identify Sybase error messages. To help COBSQL identify them, you can modify the esql.loc file. Use a text editor to edit the esql.loc file to change the layout of the messages to the following:

SYB-severity-number-text

where the parameters are:

SYB	A string which indicates to COBSQL that this is a modified Sybase error message.
`severity`	Indicates the severity of the error; some of the Sybase messages are only warnings rather than normal or fatal errors.
`number`	A unique, four digit error number assigned to the Sybase error.
`text`	The original Sybase error message.

For example, a typical entry in the esql.loc file might be:

9 = M_PRECLINE, "Warning(s) during check of query on line %1!."

and this would be changed to read:

9 = M_PRECLINE, "SYB-W-2009 Warning(s) during check of query on line %1!."

It is recommended that you make a copy of esql.loc before altering it. Using the modified version, COBSQL can detect the full range of Sybase error messages.

The location of esql.loc is dependent on the language and code page used. This is defined in the locales.dat file. If the definition of the default language for the AIX platform was as follows:

[aix]
locale = C, us_english, iso_1
locale = En_US, us_english, iso_1
locale = en_US, us_english, iso_1
locale = default, us_english, iso_1

The default langauge would be us_english, using the iso_1 code page, so the copy of esql.loc that is to be used is:

/sybase-home/locales/messages/us_english/iso_1/esql.loc

where sybase-home is the directory that the Sybase client is installed into.

For more information on how Sybase uses and locates the different error message files, refer to your Sybase Client Reference Manual.

To use Sybping with different Sybase servers, each server should have a service defined. The Sybase product sqledit shows you how to enter the required information.
If the name of the server is not specified when connecting to Sybase, Sybase searches for an environment variable called DSQUERY. This can be set within the environment variable section of a project and enables different projects to connect to different Sybase servers.
When the Sybase precompiler runs, it can generate useful information. If the COBSQL directive VERBOSE is set, COBSQL displays as much of this information as it can.
By using the COBSQL DISPLAY directive, the statistical information created by the Sybase precompiler can be seen on the screen.
If the COBOL LIST directive is set, COBSQL passes any information it has collected from the precompiler to the COBOL checker for inclusion at the end of the COBOL listing.
The Sybase precompiler accepts programs that do not contain any SQL statements, and produces an output file. This means that all of the programs in a project can be compiled successfully. However, it also means that the Sybase precompiler inserts all the Working-Storage items and COBOL support code that it would insert for a program that contains Sybase SQL statements into a non-Sybase program. This makes the program larger, and may effect its performance.
The Sybase COBOL precompiler can be supplied separately to the Sybase System 11 Server. If this is the case, care must be taken when installing the Sybase COBOL precompiler as it is supplied with its own version of the Open Client support files and problems can arise if the two products have different versions of these files. In this situation, we strongly recommend that you contact Sybase support before proceeding with the installation of the Sybase System 11 COBOL precompiler.
You should take particular care if you are installing the Sybase client onto a machine that has the Server installed onto it (or vice versa). Installing the Sybase client only does not cause any problems.