Cobol Compiler parameters

COBOL technical questions
1

Hello Cobol’er,

II’m new im Cobol Prgramming and 've installed the IBM Linux Cobol Compiler on Ubuntu and the VS Editor. I’ve wrote my first Cobol Program but I have no idea how can I compile or debug the program. I need help.
Regards
Julius

2

Hi, for begginers you could use this site
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/compile_cobol_online.php
regards

3

If you are new to COBOLL I strongly suggest you to switch to GNU COBOL, even older 2.20 (Ubuntu 20.04 repo has it) is quite stable, supports several dialects such Microfocus and works nicely with DB2.

4

Hi,
it looks like you may have experience with the GNU Cobol compiler.
i try to work with GNU Cobol 3.2 on a windows 11 system.
at eht moment, have problems with the encoding. The files i work with are encoded in utf-8, but it seems, that cobc works only with ascii files and is not able to cope with special german characters like (ä,ö,ü,ß…).
my question: is there a compile option?

Best regards,

5

I’m using GNUCobol 3.1.2 in WSL/Ubuntu 22.04 and have no problem with special chars:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. UTF.

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.

       MAIN.
           DISPLAY "áéíóú - ä,ö,ü,ß".
           STOP RUN.

If you are just doing hobby stuff I recommend you to switch to do your stuff in WSL/Ubuntu.

Any chance your file is not in UTF-8?
Did you build GNU COBOL yourself or get a pre-built?

6

FOLLOW UP:

I got GnuCOBOL 3.2 VBI for Windows from here:
https://www.arnoldtrembley.com/GnuCOBOL.htm

I compiled a program containing UTF-8 chars in Windows console and got “garbage” but is not COBOL or MinGW’s is console fault.

Before running your program change the code page of the console with:

chcp 65001

And you will see your UTF-8 characters.

2024-03-22 16_37_09
2024-03-22 16_37_09741×665 15.2 KB

Hope this helps.

Regards!

7

thank you for dealing with this issue!
i use the compiler (GnuCOBOL) 3.2.0
Built Jan 07 2024 20:12:03 Packaged Jan 07 2024 20:14:39 UTC
C version (MinGW) “13.2.0” on a windows11 maschine. the cobol source is encoded in utf-8.
The compile of the following cobol program…
"IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. TESTPROG.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 FILLER.
05 K-UMLAUTE PIC X(003) VALUE ‘AÖÜ’.
01 Z-FELDER.
05 Z-UMLAUTE PIC X(003).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
MAIN.
MOVE K-UMLAUTE TO Z-UMLAUTE.
STOP RUN.
"
…produces the following messages:
"
C:\test\TESTPROG.CBL:10: warning: value size exceeds data size [-Wothers]
8 | WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
9 | 01 FILLER.
10 > 05 K-UMLAUTE PIC X(003) VALUE ‘AÃ-Ão’.
11 | 01 Z-FELDER.
12 | 05 Z-UMLAUTE PIC X(003).
C:\test\TESTPROG.CBL:10: note: value size is 5 [-Wothers]

the question is, how to configure the compiler resp. what compile options are needed to cope with special characters.
Best regards