Anyone Updated to COBOL 5 yet? If so, how was the experience?

[Felicity Vaughan]

We will be upgrading to COBOL 5 and I've heard horror stories about the time it will now take for Compiles.  Does anyone have any experiences/insights they would like to share about the conversion?

Thanks.

[SBAshby]

Hi Fily,

 

Cobol 5.2 appears to be better on lots of levels than 5.1 was. So if you have a choice then go for 5.2.

 

Compile times will be longer but make sure your storage people look at VLF settings for the PDS/e load libraries that your processors will write to.
Read up on the Endevor BSTXCOPY utility because you will need it to convert your footprinted load modules if they currently in PDS format.

 

 

CA are going to do a WebEx session very soon covering this topic. (February some time)

 

There may be quite a lot of maintenance to apply to your testing tools too. That is worth investigating.

 

Just some bullet points, I hope the CA WebEx will go in to a lot more detail.

 

Stuart

[Josef Thaler]

Hi Fily,

 

We are already using Cobol 5 at our site.

 

I'd affirm Stuart to go for Cobol 5.2, if possible.

 

IBM talks about around 5 times (  equals to + 400% additional) cpu consumption for compile. The effective increase - as always - depends from the code to be compiled. If you notice significant differences to this IBM's rule of thumb, you could consider to report it to IBM as a pmr.

 

If you compare, take into account that Cobol 4 option OPT(FULL) corresponds to Cobol 5 OPT(1) STGOPT. Cobol 5 OPT(2) does additional optimizations.

 

We do not yet have data about (desirable) savings or increase in Cobol runtime. 

 

Josef    

[Anon Anon]

Hello,

 

There is a knowledge document written on the new BSTXCOPY utility, the URL is:

New Utility to convert from PDS to PDSe

 

There is also a KD on Endevor and the new release of COBOL, The URL is

Are there any known problems with Endevor and Enterprise COBOL V5.1?

[Felicity Vaughan]

Thanks.

[craigrex]

Hi Fily,

 

We upgraded to COBOL 5.1 last year.  I completely agree with the earlier comments to go for COBOL 5.2 if possible to avoid applying a lot of PTFS to COBOL 5.1.  

Most of the problems we encountered were with 3rd Party software products which didn't work with COBOL 5.   Most vendors seem to have fixed this issues now.  We also had some Language Environment issues after upgrading to COBOL 5 so ensure you have all the LE maintenance needed for COBOL 5 applied.    

As well as a significant increase in CPU the COBOL 5 compiler also requires a lot more storage at runtime.   I would suggest using REGION=0M on the Endeovr Job card or Step as some users were complaining that big programs would not complie otherwise.

 

Finally,  there are some differences in the way COBOL 5 performs when reading Varible length QSAM Records.  Its worth reading Chapter 15 (Variable Length Records - Wrong Length Read) in the COBOL 5 migration guide below and also Appendix G which explains how to idenfity programs which could be affected.   

 

http://publibfp.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/igy5mg20.pdf

 

Craig

[Craig Fontaine]

Fily:

 

This is a Webcast by CA Testing Tools that discusses the conversion to COBOL 5 : Webcast Replay: COBOL V5 Migration Considerations [Feb. 25th]

These aren't Endevor related issues, rather upgraded issue in general.

 

Craig