Re: COBOL to Java conversion


"HansJ" <hjigel@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1193659579.442522.126090@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We are in the business of migrating Unisys COBOL mainframe
applications to Unix.
Using the same programming language and keeping the code intact is a
key element, because we think that there are enough issues to deal
with.
Recently we have seen requests to not only move to a different
platform, but also to change the language to be Java.
We don't need to discuss all the issues that come with a language
change, like maintainability, staff competence, etc. as this is a
different topic.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has seen a successful
project of this type that has a significant size.
A significant size would be more than one million lines of COBOL code.

Thanks HansJ

There are some automatic converters from Cobol to Java on the market (just
google them) but so far none of them producing 100% equivalent code, so you
have to rewrite a lot of things manually (some of the converters just
convert partially, some of them convert all COMP-3 and zoned arithmetics
into floating point...)

Your another option (if allowed) is to convert to C/C++ automatically (using
OpenCobol, for example).
The code will not look very friendly, but you will be able to recognize your
statements.
At least you will have a 100% working program, and than if you want you can
change it manually putting back the original variables names, making the
code more short and readable, etc. (and typically that's possible and not
very complicated).

Bad idea anyway. Good luck.
Sergey


.

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