Cobos Tutorial: How to compile a local source on the Mainframe

Posted January 14, 2014

Cobos is specially designed to easily develop mainframe applications. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to compile a local program on the mainframe and to retrieve the SYSOUT locally.

If you recently joined reading our Cobos tutorial serie, don’t forget to read our previous posts, which will help you handling the tool:

Let’s dive in Cobos’ compilation features! When compiling a COBOL source, the error messages are displayed in the Problems view synchronized with the source in the editor. Z/Navigator plug-in is designed to process mainframe files directly from eclipse but requires scripts installation on mainframe. If you are comfortable with JCL editing, try adapting the JCL sample supplied for a batch program.

In the COBOS_SAMPLE project, follow the steps below:

Open Custload.cob in COBOL Editor.
Open compcob.jcl in JCL Editor

Custload program requires neither CICS nor SQL. So, you can leave the comment lines in STEPLIB. Check the COBOL STEPLIB and, if necessary adapt the DSNAME according with the version of Enterprise COBOL in use (here IGY420 qualifier for COBOL 4.2 compiler).

Custload program does not require copies and object modules. So, leave the comment lines in SYSLIB (COBOL and LINKED).
Select Custload.cob tab
Double-click on “1. FTP access ► 6. Compile local source” in the Commands view:
Fill in the form fields and select compcob.jcl as JCL template with the “browse” button:
Click on “OK” button to launch the compilation.
See the result in the “Problems” view:

You should see a warning at line 45.
On the warning line, Right-click and select “Open Sysout” in context menu:

The sysout opens in the text editor and the warning line is selected.