Help, Version Information, and Communication With C Programs

You can get a summary of compiler options with the following command:

ccbl  -help

You can display the copyright notice and version information with this command:

ccbl  -v

You can get configuration information with the following command:

ccbl -vv

On UNIX systems, you can get additional port configuration information with:

ccbl -vvv

The information displayed with -vvv varies depending on the UNIX system and is subject to change from release to release.

You can find all of the level 78s in a COPY library and create equivalent C-language #define statements with the following command:

ccbl  -defines  filename

You can use the -defines option to simplify communication between COBOL and C programs.

One specific use of this option is to simplify the creation of Windows Help files when you are building context-sensitive help. Use this option to map context ID strings to context numbers for use with Windows Help files. First create a COPY library with level 78s that map the context IDs (strings) from your help file to unique context numbers (the Windows Help API function WinHelp requires a number as the context ID parameter). Then when you specify ccbl -defines, the compiler creates a file containing #defines that correspond to the level 78s in the COPY library you created.

The -defines option must be followed (as the next separate argument) by the name of the COPY library. acurfap syntax can be used to specify a file on a system being served by AcuServer or AcuConnect. See Remote File Name Handling for more information.

By default -defines creates a file having the same base name as the specified file and the extension .h. For example, if your COPY library is named PRHELP.DEF, you could use this command:

CCBL -DEFINES PRHELP.DEF

to create the file PRHELP.H that contains one #define for each level 78 in PRHELP.DEF.

Be aware that any hyphens in the level 78 names are converted to underscores in the corresponding #define. Although hyphens are allowed in COBOL and in the help file, hyphens are not allowed in C names. See The Help Processor in User Interface Programming, for more information about Windows Help files.