Compiler Directives and Dialects

Many details of the Compiler's behavior and of the COBOL language it accepts can be specified by directives. This chapter tells you whether default settings have changed since your previous COBOL system.

This chapter also describes directives to help migration from IBM mainframes, including the DIALECT directive, which replaces the USE directive and .dir files.

6.1 Directive Defaults

All default directive settings in this product are the same as in Object COBOL Developer Suite V4.1 for UNIX and COBOL Developer Suite V4.0 for UNIX.

6.2 Excluded Directives

This section describes those Compiler directives that you need to be aware of if you are migrating applications. For a full list of the directives available in Server Express, see the chapter Directives for Compiler of your Server Express User's Guide.

6.2.1 Syntax Checking

The following directives are accepted but do nothing as they are meaningless in this product:

6.2.2 Code Generation

The directives GNTANIM and GANIM are no longer supported. In this product the Compiler compiles programs for use with Animator by default. Because .gnt code can now be debugged without specific directives, there is no longer a need for these directives.

The FASTLINK directive is now redundant; the Compiler automatically detects whether optimized parameter processing is possible.

6.3 Mainframe Directives

The following directives in this product make the Compiler behave like an IBM mainframe compiler.

ADV
AMODE
CMPR2
COBOL370
CONVERTPTR
DIALECT
DOSVS
DYNAM
DYNAMICFD
FLAGMIG
FP-ROUNDING
HOST-NUMCOMPARE
LIBRARIAN
MAPNAME
ODOOSVS
OLDCOPY
OSVS
PANVALET
PROGID-COMMENT
PROTECT-LINKAGE
RDEFPTR
RDW
SAA
TRACE
VSC2
ZWB

6.4 The DIALECT Directive

In previous products, files of directives (.dir files) were supplied containing sets of directives that made the COBOL created by the Compiler match particular COBOL dialects; the USE(filename) directive specified which .dir file to use. This enabled you to migrate programs from non-Micro Focus COBOL systems, especially IBM mainframes, to Micro Focus COBOL systems.

In this product the .dir files, and the USE directive, are replaced by the DIALECT directive. The DIALECT directive enables you to specify the dialect you want; the Compiler directives required by that dialect are then set for you.

The DIALECT directive is described in the chapter Directives for Compiler in your Server Express User's Guide.

6.5 IDXFORMAT and File Handler Configuration

In Object COBOL Developer Suite V4.1, if you compiled a program with the IDXFORMAT Compiler directive set (using a $SET statement or the command-line) to a non-zero value, the Compiler directive took priority over the IDXFORMAT entry in the File Handler configuration file extfh.cfg. In Server Express all applicable entries in extfh.cfg, including the idxformat entry, take priority over the equivalent Compiler directives.