Generating, Compiling COBOL

Articles in this series are showing us how to develop bridge applications. In the previous article we created a web service in Jazz. Now we need to turn this into COBOL. It takes one click!

With the Jazz workbench displaying a valid program (no S-level messages), click [Process]. When the next button turns green, you can click this to see your COBOL. Here it is. Over 2600 lines of COBOL including comments: the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION lists the Jazz program as comments (61 lines), DATA DIVISION is 491 lines, and PROCEDURE division is 2041 lines. It compiles cleanly.

2041 lines may seem a lot of logic but consider what is being done. An important part of JSPG2's job is to ensure that invalid data is not let through to the database. This statement from the Update logic: -

must check that each of the 16 fields named in message #207 is correct for its data definition. Look at the code of paragraph JZ-58-ACCEPT where this is implemented. This alone is 494 lines, and it's only part of JSPG2's job.

If you have configured MANASYS Jazz to work with z/OS the next button will be labelled [Job Results]. The COBOL is generated locally and uploaded to z/OS, and a job is submitted to compile this. What you'll see will be the output of this job. If it takes longer than 30 seconds for the results to be returned and the button to turn green, check if the job queue has been paused. If you just want to see the COBOL, right-click [Process], click [Generate COBOL] from the Process form, and then [Review COBOL]. This will only take a few seconds, and nothing is sent to z/OS.

If you have configured MANASYS Jazz to work with Micro Focus, the button will be labelled with the name of your COBOL project - in my case [TstSQL] - and it will only take a few seconds for the button to turn green. When you click it, you'll open your COBOL project, where you can compile your program if it's shown in Solution Explorer. If not, you need to add it to the COBOL project first. Right-click cbl, select Add/Existing item:

This opens Windows Explorer. Navigate to your COBOL program (/cbl/JSPG2) and click [Add]. It now appears in Solution Explorer. Right-click the program, and select Compile from the drop-down menu.

This is the 6th article in this series about developing bridge applications. The next article will deal with "Binding": how we generate the JSON that we need to allow our web services to communicate.

See our web page if you want more information about MANASYS Jazz and to see what it can do. Contact us if you have any questions, or connect with us on LinkedIn. Download a free evaluation copy to try out MANASYS Jazz yourself. And if you haven't done so already, please repost the link to this series of articles to your colleagues and contacts.