Re: I need a new compiler...

On Dec 13, 3:52 pm, "William M. Klein" <wmkl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Brian,
  As far as '85 Standard compliance goes, do you know if Roger (or anyone) has
finished all the nested program "stuff"?  Las I heard, I didn't think so.

Also, I do not think that ANSI intrinsic functions have been implemented yet -
but again, I could be mistaken.  (The Intrinsic Functions Amendment/module was
"optional" for ANSI compliance but was required for FIPS compliance - by 1993).

Having said that, it is a VERY complete compiler including both '85 Standard
features and many common extensions.

--
Bill Klein
 wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com<btif...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:30997c16-9a6c-48c3-825e-291ac7d9aa22@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Dec 11, 3:33 pm, Richard <rip...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Dec 12, 5:04 am, "Paul H" <NoSpamphobergNoS...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Thanks Pete,
But your alternatives mostly intimidate me.

You should note that while OpenCobol, Cobol-IT, tinyCobol are mostly
ANS85 they may not have features that you think of a 'normal'.
MicroFocus has many extensions, such as X/Open and ADIS. These are not
standard ANS85 Cobol and may not exist in other compilers.

For example in Microfocus you can ACCEPT and DISPLAY AT position (or
variations such as LINE COLUMN) to produce screen interactive
programs.

In Microfocus (and other commercial products) you can have shared
files with record locking.

These are not standard ANS85 and may not be available in other
compilers, or may not work the same as MF or other commercial products
(RM, Acu, etc).

Isn't using C or Java like
coding in assembly language?

No. Using GOTO or not using scope terminators in Cobol is "like using
assembly language".

If I stay with COBOL, none of the alternatives
offer the debugging environment like MF's. Animating, breakpoints, value
monitoring, etc. These make me productive.
What do you think about
Clarion? I did buy a copy a few years ago, but gave up trying to learn to
use it. Maybe I'll give it another look.
Paul

Recent OpenCOBOL 1.1 pre-release versions have a fair handle on SCREEN
SECTION and DISPLAY var LINE nn COLUMN nn WITH ERASE EOS etc...

As far as I know, the only parts of the NIST test suite not passed now
are REPORT SECTION and COMMUNICATION SECTION.

With Berkeley DB, most of the sophisticated record and key management
options are supported and there are efforts afoot for a native VBISAM
layer to make the BDB dependency optional.

We now have layers for embedding JavaScript core (SpiderMonkey), Lua,
Perl, Tcl/Tk, libCURL, Regina REXX, SQLite (both API and a shell
clone), libDBI for MySQL and other databases.  Bindings to a full
fledged GUI through GTK+ are in progress and even in its early
version, support for windows, buttons, text entry, file dialogs
etcetera allow for simple but useful GUI applications.  Due to
OpenCOBOL's model of C generation there are already linkage options
for gnat Ada, gfortran and the plethora of other languages that
generate object files.  Routines for access to gnuplot have been
written, along with shell scripts and other external tools.

A very complete ncurses layer has existed for quite sometime in the
cobcurses package.

Documentation is being written and grows daily including instructions
for using the gdb debugger.

Oh, and it's a very comprehensive COBOL compiler as is, and
development is so active at the moment that it is hard to keep up.  ;)

I recommend that anyone and everyone give it a go.  http://opencobol.org

A repository of pre-built binaries exist for AIX, HPUX, WIN32 and I've
been running it actively on Debian GNU/Linux since I first bumped into
it a few scant months ago.  Information about the repository can be
found in the opencobol.org forums.

Cheers,
Brian

Re: Intrinsic FUNCTION. Unless I'm mistaken, all the functions are in
1.1

http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#q-does-opencobol-implement-any-intrinsic-functions

Re: Nested programs. Again, as far as I know, yes. Nested programs
are fully supported (I could be wrong, as there may be little bits
missing, but I don't think so). Recent addition of GLOBAL support
added the last piece of the puzzle.

Cheers,
Brian
.

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