Product Overview
The COBOL85 compiler conforms to the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) X3.23-1985 Standard, which supports the high level of the following required modules: Report Writer, Nucleus, Sequential I/O, Relative I/O, Indexed I/O, Interprogram Communication, Sort-Merge, and Source Text Manipulation. Support of the Multiple-Octet Character Set was implemented using the finalized CODASYL proposal for this feature. In addition, the compiler includes value-added extensions that support a flexible and powerful business application development tool.
General Features
Support for High-Volume Transaction Processing
Compiler extensions enable you to use the Transaction Server and the Enterprise Database Server for ClearPath MCP for recoverable, high-volume transaction processing.
Explicit Insertion for PICTURE Character Strings
Manual Insertion Editing using the capital letter I has been introduced into Unisys COBOL85. Manual Insertion Editing provides an unambiguous mechanism for introducing arbitrary nonblank characters in PICTURE strings as simple insertion characters.
Internationalization
The internationalization features provide support for various character sets, international business and cultural conventions, extensions to data communications protocols, and the ability to use multiple languages concurrently. COBOL85 provides language syntax that enables you to customize an application for the language and conventions of a particular locality.
MOVE CORRESPONDING and Multiple Destinations
When the CORRESPONDING phrase is used in the MOVE statement, both identifiers—the source and destinations—must be group items. Selected items from the source are then moved to selected items in multiple destinations.
The results are the same as if each pair of corresponding identifiers were referenced in separate MOVE statements. The following example illustrates the use of the MOVE CORRESPONDING statement.
MOVE CORRESPONDING <source-1> TO <destination-1, destination-2 ..>
Support for Enterprise-Wide Applications
COBOL85 allows you to nest complete programs within other COBOL program. Nesting provides a way to segment your large programs into smaller logical units, making applications
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Easier to develop and test
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More reliable
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Easier to maintain
Support for 16-Bit Character Identifiers
You can specify 16-bit character identifiers in your COBOL85 programs. Implementation of 16-bit character names in COBOL85 programs provides benefit for the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese languages, whose character sets require more than 8 bits to uniquely encode all the characters.
The implementation of 16-bit character identifiers offers the following advantages:
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Support for the development and portation of applications in character sets native to Asian languages
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A means for current and new ClearPath customers who want to expand their businesses and participate in global markets
Support for Other Key Unisys Features
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Tasking allows a program to initiate, monitor, and control other tasks. A program can use task variables to access its own task information or task information of its parent or offspring. Event items provide synchronization and interlocks between tasks.
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Interrupt procedures are dynamically invoked with event items to enable a process to continue executing other statements at the same time that it waits on an event.
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Libraries facilitate resource sharing among a cooperative set of executing tasks. A library program written in COBOL85 provides a directly nested program, or a set of directly nested programs, that can be called by other programs.
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File attributes provide access to features that augment the standard COBOL85 language. File attributes enable you to define, monitor, or change file properties.
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The MultiLingual System (MLS) environment enables you to localize your applications, including the translation of messages to another language, alternative character sets, and support for other application-specific conventions.
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COBOL85 source listings include the physical file name of the Enterprise Database Server for the invoked database. This feature can help eliminate errors that result from the use of the wrong description file, which can prevent access to the database and cause version or timestamp errors.
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You can inquire about the compilation progress of your program by entering the ?HI command with the compiler mix number. The compiler responds with the same information provided by the ?CS command but adds the program name specified in the PROGRAM-ID paragraph. This feature is useful when you are compiling a multiprogram symbol file, such as a bind stream, to determine which program is currently being compiled.
Simplified Migration
Because the COBOL74 syntax is a subset of the COBOL85 syntax, you can usually migrate COBOL74 programs to COBOL85 without any changes. The Multi-Octet Character Set feature implements the COBOL74 CCSVERSION functionality, single-octet character support, in the COBOL85 compiler. This feature provides syntax that requires the compiler to implicitly generate CENTRALSUPPORT library calls for comparison and for collation operations on single-octet national data items. A single-octet national refers to a national character that occupies one byte of computer storage. This functionality helps facilitate the migration of COBOL74 programs to COBOL85.
Ordering Information
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Platform |
Style |
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ClearPath |
The ordering style for the COBOL85 compiler is CSP 10nn-C85, where nn represents performance groups 10 through 160 (in increments of 10). |
Source code is not available for the COBOL85 compiler. The COBOL Migration Tool (CMT) and its source files are bundled components of the COBOL85 compiler and the COBOL74 compiler.
Product Information
Refer to the following documents for more information:
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COBOL ANSI-85 Programming Reference Manual, Volume 1: Basic Implementation (8600 1518)
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COBOL ANSI-85 Programming Reference Manual, Volume 2: Product Interfaces (8600 1526)
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COBOL ANSI-85 Test and Debug System (TADS) Programming Reference Manual (8600 0957)
