Conditional “Assembly” for COBOL?

[Patrick Roehl]

I’d like to be able to build various versions of a COBOL program by doing
something like a conditional assembly.  Has anyone does anything like this?

Is it possible to add AIF statements to non-assembler source, “assemble
it,” and get the constructed source?  Obviously trying to assemble the
result would be pointless, but can the constructed source be captured
somehow?

I’ve considered doing this with Rexx, but wonder if someone else has tried
to solve this.  All suggestions are welcome.