When you run MicroFoc COBOL on zlinux was there a compare vs z/os
Performance ???
----- Original Message -----
From: John Summerfield [deb...@herakles.homelinux.org]
Sent: 01/12/2009 02:10 AM ZE9
To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU
Subject: Re: Porting Cobol to Linux/390
David Boyes wrote:
On 1/9/09 11:01 AM, "Thompson, Michael E" <michael_thomp...@uhc.com> wrote:
Depends on your source program. If you didn't use the IBM extended COBOL
verbs, most programs will run pretty much unchanged. Direct access files and
database interfaces, date processing and some library interfaces will all
likely need attention. Anything involving CALL will need LOTS of attention.
30 seconds at opencobol's site suggests imbedded sql will be difficult.
Was there a product involved in the porting process or
was it a manual process?
Pretty much manual compile-test-go for most things. I've looked at some of
the products that claim to auto-convert VS COBOL source for MicroFocus, and
most of them are more work than doing the testing manually if you're
systematic about it. The most work was figuring out the file I/O management
for the first couple of programs and how copylibs are handled. Also getting
the source over into some kind of managed library (Subversion is your
friend. Really) on the Unix side. Emacs has a nice COBOL editing mode, which
is reasonably tolerable to use.
What were your experiences as you proceeded
through the porting process?
It mostly works. I found a lot of gratuitious source changes to be required
in the MicroFocus environment, but some of them were simply newer versions
of the COBOL standard (lots of syntactical and library function stuff
changed in COBOL 88), and some were just necessary because of the difference
in how I/O is done. Most of the annoying bits about moving COBOL code is the
loss of DD card capabilities to connect logical files to real files in a
comprehensible way, and batch management capabilities. Linux desperately
needs some kind of better batch automation capability -- NQS is workable as
batch, but difficult to set up and manage.
I forget how I came by it, might have been with I did some work for Les
Bell, but I had a bit of a play with PL/1 on OS/2. It used environment
variables to make the connexion:
SYSIN=dsn=... and so on
SYSUT1=this.file,dcb=(lrecl=80,recfm=vb)
I thought it pretty neat.
There's also a lot of data massaging things that can be more easily done on
Unix/Linux with Perl or REXX than COBOL, so it's often easier to replace
some of the more utility-oriented COBOL code with equivalent REXX programs
than try to pull the whole environment over.
Overall, it wasn't any worse than moving from VS COBOL to VMS COBOL. It's a
different environment, and there will be changes required in language and
tooling. If you're prepared for that, then it's not a overwhelming project.
If you try to create ISPF/PDF and SCLM work-alikes, then you aren't going to
have any fun at all.
It's a bit like pretending soy milk is an alternative to (dairy) milk in
cooking. Chemically, there's very little similarity so the results are
not going to be very comparable. And soy milk isn't going to curdle, so
adding acid foods (plums, oranges juice) will work differently.
If I were doing the conversion, I'd want a desktop running Linux. I tend
to consume lots of CPU cycles, and if I'm targetting Linux it makes
sense to me to actually work on Linux.
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
1aaaa...@coco.merseine.nu z1aaaa...@coco.merseine.nu
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
You cannot reply off-list:-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit
http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Visit our website at http://www.nyse.com
****************************************************
Note: The information contained in this message and any attachment
to it is privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If the
reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee
or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination,
distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
If you have received this communication in error, please notify the
sender immediately by replying to the message, and please delete
it from your system. Thank you. NYSE Euronext, Inc.
