Introduction to Developing COBOL Applications for .NET Core

Attention: .NET Core on Linux is provided as an Early Adopter Product (EAP) feature only. It is being made available to allow you to test and provide feedback on the new capabilities. Be aware that file locking does not work in all instances, and may cause exceptions or the ignoring of file locks. We will continue the development of this feature and provide additional interfaces via patch updates and future releases. Please contact Micro Focus SupportLine if you require further clarification.

.NET Core is an open-source development platform that supports multiple operating systems. As such, when you develop a COBOL application and publish it to .NET Core, you can deploy the published application to any operating system that .NET Core supports.

The general process for developing a COBOL application for .NET Core is as follows:

  1. Create a new project, making sure that you use one targeted at .NET Core.
  2. Build and debug the application as you would normally.
  3. When the application is finished and ready to be released, publish the deployable files for the platforms that you want your application to run on.
  4. Deploy the published files.

For more information on .NET Core, see Microsoft's .NET Core Guide.

Note: Visual COBOL currently supports the deployment of COBOL applications to .NET Core on Windows and Linux. For more information see .NET Core Known Issues and Restrictions.