I had a recent inquiry into why all the warnings in Fujitsu COBOL and why have them, and how could they turn off warnings in not only COBOL, but in other  mixed languages.  I guess I go back to moments in my life, when I was warned “don’t do that”, and like any kid, I may have not heeded the advice, to my later dismay.  Warnings are really your friend.  They may seem overwhelming at times, but they may point out important things in your code, that many times you don’t even know existed.   Read Full Post

Having established in my previous blog what “COBOL runtimes” are, in this blog I’ll consider whether you should pay for COBOL runtime licenses – i.e. the right to ship and use COBOL runtime libraries with your applications. Read Full Post

You may notice that we make a big thing on our website about the fact that the “runtimes” with NetCOBOL are free so you may well be asking “What are COBOL runtimes and why are they necessary?” I’ll aim to answer the two questions in this post. Read Full Post

I recently recalled that I wrote the article below in 2003 for a technical publication but I don’t think it ever saw the light of day. It still contains a number of relevant points that those interested in developing quality code or owning a quality COBOL compiler may find useful, so I’m making the article available here. It is based on an interview with Mr. Masaaki Uchida, at that time General Manager of the compiler development group at Fujitsu in Japan, and adds points derived from other research available at the time. Read Full Post

This tutorial describes how you can develop VB.NET routines, and use the added functionality that .NET has to offer from your NetCOBOL for Windows COBOL code. In order to do this, Your NetCOBOL for Windows code relies on the same feature it did to call an ActiveX DLL (see video of NetCOBOL for Windows calling a VB6 ActiveX DLL for reference). This layer is called the Component Object Model or COM. COM works in conjunction with .NET by the use of two tools (TLBExp and RegAsm). Download the sample source code used in this tutorial. Read Full Post

 This video covers the basic steps that you need to take a .NET DLL and make it visible to COM(component object mode), so that your NetCOBOL for Windows routines can access them. It covers the Type Lib Exporter(TLBExp), the Register Assembly routine(RegAsm) and touches upon the Global Cache Utility (gacutil). Download the sample source code used in this tutorial. Read Full Post

This tutorial describes how you can develop NetCOBOL for C#(CSharp) routines, and use the added functionality that .NET has to offer from your NetCOBOL for Windows COBOL code. In order to do this, Your NetCOBOL for Windows code relies on the same feature it did to call an ActiveX DLL (see video of NetCOBOL for Windows calling a VB6 ActiveX DLL for reference). This layer is called the Component Object Model or COM. COM works in conjunction with .NET by the use of two tools (TLBExp and RegAsm). Note: You should watch the video NetCobol For Windows - Call .NET DLL - Shows basic steps for using COM Interop, and registering the DLL. Download the sample source code used in this tutorial. Read Full Post

 A prior video shows you how you can create a DLL that simply calls a Windows API with no other calls embedded in the same program. This tutorial shows you how you can combine COBOL Program calls with Windows API calls in-line in the same program by use of an "Entry File" while still utilizing your compiler options you need. Download the sample source code used in this tutorial. Read Full Post

Case sensitivity is important for making API calls using the proper Entry Point in the DLL. For this, we have the ALPHAL compiler directive. This video shows a simple example of an API function being called from a COBOL program. Download the sample source code used in this tutorial. Read Full Post

NetCOBOL for .NET Tutorial covering: Read Full Post