Setting your COBOL processing options

When your COBOL copybooks fit into any of the following scenarios, you must set your COBOL processing options so that File Manager can process them correctly.

  • You have used COPY compiler-directing statements to include other members that do not belong to the same PDSs as the copybooks.
  • Your COBOL copybooks contain characters that you want to remove or replace with other characters before compiling the copybooks into templates.
  • You have used DBCS characters in your copybooks.
Note: File Manager now supports specifying additional SYSLIBs and REPLACE text in the same copybook.

To set your COBOL processing options:

  1. From the Primary Option Menu panel, select 0 Settings, then 5 Compiler, and 2 COBOL.

    The COBOL Processing Options panel is displayed.

  2. If you have used additional SYSLIBS, enter the names of the data sets in the Additional SYSLIB data set fields.

    Members included by COPY compiler-directing statements must be found in the SYSLIB concatenation. When you specify a copybook on a File Manager panel to create a new template (or update an existing template), the SYSLIB concatenation consists of the PDS of the copybook, plus up to ten additional PDSs that you can specify on this panel. These PDSs are searched in order (PDS of the copybook, followed by these additional PDSs, 1–10.)

    Note: CA-Panvalet libraries cannot be specified as additional SYSLIB sets. Further, if a CA-Panvalet Library is the main copybook library, then no additional SYSLIB data sets may be specified.
  3. If you want to replace text in your copybooks, enter pseudo text character strings in the COBOL Replacing Options From string and To string fields.

    For example, if your copybooks contain colon characters (:) that you want to remove before compiling, then specify ==:== as a “From” string and ===== as the matching “To” string.

  4. If your copybooks contain DBCS characters, select the DBCS compiler option. Otherwise, use NODBCS.
  5. To set the maximum acceptable return code for a compile, enter a value in the Maximum Return Code to be accepted from compiler field.

    When using the online panels to generate a template from a copybook, if the compiler returns a warning/error code greater than the specified number, File Manager displays a pop-up menu in which you can make decisions about further processing.

    When generating a template during the processing of a batch function, if the compiler returns a warning/error code greater than the specified number, File Manager halts the running of the function.

  6. To use the COBOL SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph "Decimal-point is comma" when compiling COBOL copybooks, select the option, Decimal-point is comma.

    When you select this option, the COBOL compiler exchanges the functions of the period and the comma in PICTURE character strings and in numeric literals.

  7. To use the Arith(extend) COBOL compile option when compiling COBOL copybooks, select the option, Arith(extend).
  8. To retain the original case of field names as coded in the COBOL copybooks, select the option, Mixed case field names. This feature is only available if you are running with the File Manager COBOL compiler or a minimum compiler level of Enterprise COBOL V4R1.

    If you do not select this option, field names are stored in uppercase.

  9. Supply any additional compiler options which will be added via the CBL statement.
  10. Press the Exit function key (F3) to save the changes you have made and exit the panel.

Related topics

  • Set COBOL Processing Options panel (option 0.5.2)
  • For details on specifying “From” and “To” strings for the COBOL REPLACE directive, see the IBM COBOL Language Reference.
  • For details on the effect of these compiler options, see the IBM COBOL Programming Guide for OS/390 & VM.