Features Added in Visual COBOL 2.2 Update 2

This release provides enhancements in the following areas:

Visual Studio

Visual COBOL provides enhancements in the following areas:

  • Call Hierarchy - support for the Call Hierarchy window has been enhanced and it now shows types and members across the entire solution.
  • Debugging enhancements - includes enhanced support for the Autos windows for native and managed COBOL, support for querying EBCDIC data in managed code, and support for the standard visualizers for data items and groups in native COBOL.
  • Expanded Copybook View - now supports Intellisense, collapsing and expanding of outlining regions, and code snippets.
  • Find All References - you can now configure the scope of the Find All References command. The default behavior is to search for references in the current COBOL project and now, you can enable Find All References to search for matches in all managed COBOL projects that are part of your solution.
  • Net Express Project Import wizard - now includes a number of usability enhancements.
  • Run-time configuration - you can now use the application configuration file, Application.config, in native COBOL projects to set all run-time tunables.

Character Set Enhancements

The following character sets, available using the MFCODESET environment variable, have been enhanced or added in this release:

  • Thai Extended (0066) - new
  • Korean (0082)
  • Simplified Chinese (0086)
  • Traditional Chinese (0886)

There are also a number of double-byte character sets that are now capable of mixed single-byte and double-byte character conversion; see the definition of MFCODESET in Environment Variables in Alphabetical Order for more information.

Code Analysis

Visual COBOL can produce the following COBOL reports:
  • Dead Code - finds unreferenced items or any piece of code that can't be reached during execution.
  • Unreferenced Data - finds any data items that are not explicitly referenced in the Procedure Division of a program.
  • Undeclared Procedures - finds any procedures that are referred to but not defined.
  • Copybook Structure - displays the hierarchy of any copybooks defined in a program.
  • Program Statistics - provides general information, such as number of source code lines, number of data items, and size of data items.
  • Unexecuted Procedures - finds any procedures that are defined but not referred to.

Database Access

The following new features are available in database access support:

COBSQL
In Visual Studio:
  • Pro*COBOL support - you can now select and configure the Pro*COBOL COBSQL preprocessor for compiling COBSQL applications on the SQL tab in the project's properties.
  • KEEPCOMP - the new KEEPCOMP directive resolves COMP/COMP-5 issues with Oracle applications on little-endian platforms.
HCO for DB2 LUW
This release introduces GEN-HV-FROM-GROUP - a new DB2 ECM compiler directive option, that generates host variables for all elementary data items when a multiple-level group variable is used in a FETCH or singleton SELECT DB2 statement.
OpenESQL
This version provides the following new OpenESQL features:
  • Support for SQL Server 2014.
  • New SQL Compiler directive options:
    • DETECTDATE=SERVER - resolves host variables alignment with column data types in an SQL table.
    • GEN-HV-FROM-GROUP - generates host variables for all elementary data items when a multiple-level group variable is used in a FETCH or singleton SELECT SQL statement.
  • Sample applications - the following native COBOL SQL sample applications are new with this version:
    • Get Diagnostics - demonstrates how to use GET DIAGNOSTICS EXEC SQL calls to get diagnostic information from various DBMSs.
    • LOB Data Types - Demonstrates how to INSERT and SELECT LOB data in a native application using various DBMSs.
XA switch modules
Restriction: This feature applies only when the Enterprise Server feature is enabled.
The following XA switch module updates are available in this version:
  • Oracle switch module:
    • Supports User Impersonation when statically registered.
    • Enables you to specify which XA resource definitions use User Impersonation.
    • Now compiled with one source file, rather than two.
  • SQL Server switch module:
    • Enables you to specify which XA resource definitions use User Impersonation.
    • Now compiled with one source file, rather than two.

External Security Facility (ESF)

The Enterprise Server External Security Facility (ESF) now supports caching the results of some security queries. This can improve the performance of enterprise server instances and of the MFDS when they are configured to use external security.

To enable caching, you need to set non-zero values for the Cache limit (maximum size of the cache) and Cache TTL (Time To Live, or how long before a cached result expires) settings on the MFDS Security tab, the Default ES Security tab, or on the Security tab for an individual enterprise server. (Currently, the cache settings for Security Managers have no effect; you need to set cache parameters on one of the three Security pages mentioned earlier.)

For more information, see http://supportline.microfocus.com/examplesandutilities/doxygen/caching.html.

Tunables

This release includes the following new tunable:

  • reduce_java_signals - specifies the options that are passed to a JVM when mixing Java and COBOL.
Parent topic: New Features