PowerCOBOL is a GUI Builder that allows COBOL programmers to create Windows applications. PowerCOBOL uses an event driven programming model like Visual Basic but all the programming is done in COBOL. Fujitsu COBOL is the compiler used to create batch and character mode (DISPLAY/ACCEPT and Screen Section) applications. It is possible to create mixed PowerCOBOL and Fujitsu COBOL applications. With PowerCOBOL, you can create and use ActiveX controls.

All the books and manuals are provided in Adobe Acrobat softcopy form on the CD. You can also purchase hard copy manuals from our web site: www.adtools.com/order if you prefer them. After you install the softcopy documentation and the Acrobat Reader (included with Fujitsu COBOL V4.0), you can view and search all of the softcopy documentation by selecting StartHere under Fujitsu COBOL Documentation 4.0.

Yes, you can search the entire document library when researching a feature. Please read the StartHere file in the Softcopy directory of the CD.

The Fujitsu COBOL Getting Started Guide – Chapter 2 A Quick Tour is a good place to start. We recommend that you print out this chapter. This provides step by step instructions on using Fujitsu COBOL. Also, see question 17.

The PowerCOBOL User's Guide - Chapter 3 Developing Your First PowerCOBOL Application is a good place to start. We recommend that you print out this chapter. PowerCOBOL, like Fujitsu COBOL, comes with numerous sample programs. These programs are fully documented in Appendix A of the PowerCOBOL User’s Guide.

Yes, the manuals can be ordered from our web site www.adtools.com/order. The cost ranges from $20 for Fujitsu COBOL Debugging Guide to $190 for a complete set of Windows manuals.

Yes, Fujitsu PowerCOBOL and Fujitsu COBOL support databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Oracle, Sybase and Informix using ODBC, and also using native exec SQL syntax.

Yes, to request more information please send a note to cobol@adtools.com include the Fujitsu COBOL serial number, database you want to access, and platform (Win 95 or NT).

Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL, Oracle, Sybase SQL Anywhere and Informix have all been tested.

Any database that can be accessed via ODBC should work.

Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 only support 32-bit ODBC drivers.
If you are running on Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0, you must use a 32-bit ODBC driver.

The first place to look is with the vendor who supplied the database. However, Crystal Reports Professional V6.0 (included on the CD) also contains many ODBC drivers. When you run the install program for our COBOL, you will have the option to install Crystal Reports Professional V6.0 too.

The Fujitsu COBOL Getting Started Guide - Chapter 2 A Quick Tour is a good place to start. Also, in Appendix A Sample Programs, there are complete instructions on running all of the sample programs in Fujitsu COBOL.

NMAKE: U1077 RETURN CODE 0x68
LINK 1561 ENTRY POINT MUST BE DEFINED.

You have not correctly specified the MAIN compiler option. To do this, you can right-click the mouse on the module and select Main Program. Please see the Fujitsu Getting Started Guide for more information.

Yes, The Fujitsu COBOL Project Manager has a simple facility to automate compiles. Please refer to the Fujitsu COBOL User’s Guide - Chapter 6 Project Management for more information. All of the sample programs are built with project files that utilize this facility, so you can also familiarize yourself it by building and executing the sample programs.

Yes, The Fujitsu PowerGEM Plus product that is included on the CD includes the Microsoft Make facility and a utility to create make files.

Yes, you can use your own editor by modifying the setting in the Project Manager drop-down menu; Environment->Customize Editor.

In order to debug a program, it must be compiled with the TEST compile option and linked for debug. The Fujitsu COBOL Getting Started Guide - Chapter 2 A Quick Tour describes the steps necessary to compile and link the COBOL program for debugging. The Fujitsu COBOL Debugging Guide contains more information about using the debugger.

The PowerCOBOL User’s Guide - Chapter 7 Debugging the Program describes the steps necessary to debug a PowerCOBOL project. More Debugging Tips for PowerCOBOL can be found in Chapters 9 and 10 in this manual.

The Fujitsu COBOL Debugger Guide - Chapter 3 describes debugging mixed PowerCOBOL and Fujitsu COBOL applications.

Yes, set "@EnvSetWindow=UNUSE" in the Run-time Environment Window and Save the settings. The next time the application is run the window will not be displayed. The COBOL User’s Guide and the on-line help contain more information on setting this value, and all of the variables available in the Run-time Environment Window.

The SRC(FIX,FIX) compiler option should be specified. This indicates that the compiler should only look for COBOL source in columns 7-72.

Yes, to work with Btrieve files, specify the BTRV option on the file specification. This is set in the Run-time Environment Window. For example, INFILE=C:\MYFILE,BTRV

With Fujitsu COBOL 4.0, there is no 16-bit support, so only Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT are supported.

There are run-time installers for both Fujitsu COBOL and PowerCOBOL. These installers may be distributed with your applications, and there are no run-time licensing fees. The run-time/application installers are installed on your hard drive in the folder \FSC\COBOL97\COBOL Wrapper. See the Supplemental manual for instruction on using the runtime/application installers.

(For 4.0 the run-time installers are located on your CD in the \Tools\Patch\Rts folder: Runtime COBOL97 Installer and Runtime PowerCOBOL Installer. When packaging a run-time system in a client/server environment, it is usually better to replicate the run-time system on every client machine. You must also set the PATH environment variable after the run-time system is installed. )

Please see the manual, Micro Focus to Fujitsu COBOL User’s Guide, for specific information.

Fujitsu COBOL contains support for the Micro Focus CBL_ routines. The are included on your CD. The documentation may be obtained from the web site at www.adtools.com. (For 4.0 the routines and documentation are contained in a file CBL_Routines.EXE, available from our web site at www.adtools.com.)

There are two ways to print reports using Fujitsu COBOL: COBOL syntax and PowerFORM.

With COBOL syntax, you may not use proportional fonts such as Sans Serif. PowerFORM prints reports in a WYSIWYG format.

Also, you should note that MSLineDraw is the equivalent to a "native DOS" print. Another alternative is to write to a file, and print that. These alternatives should be considered if it appears that Windows print drivers (which COBOL uses) are getting in the way of a simple print that "used to work under DOS".

You can do this using the TabIndex property with each individual control.

Support for the European date format is planned for a future release of PowerCOBOL.

You can call a .DLL file directly using the OPENSHEET method in PowerCOBOL V4.0. (The V3.0 requirement to place DLL information in the COBOL85.CBR file has been removed.)

The Data item definition for a .DLL name to be used in the OPENSHEET call must be Pic X(260):

01 DLL-NAME PIC X(260).

This is a current restriction in V4.0. If you are converting a project from V3.0, you should make sure you change your current definitions. You can get unpredictable results if you do not use a PIC X(260).

For an example of this technique, see the Subsheet sample on our web site at www.adtools.com. For more information, see chapters 9 and 10 of the PowerCOBOL User’s Guide.

If you click on the properties for a project name, and then click on the Build tab, you will see a "Build Mode" property.

This property controls where PowerCOBOL places its output of a build. If you select "Release Mode", PowerCOBOL will automatically create a "Release" subdirectory below the directory the project is currently saved in, and the output of the build will be placed here. If you instead select "Debug Mode", PowerCOBOL will instead create a "Debug" subdirectory below the directory the project is currently saved in and the build will output to this directory.

If using these defaults, you should be certain that a single application using multiple projects has them all set consistently to Debug or Release for any given build. However, this feature is configurable. If you do not want PowerCOBOL to create this subdirectory structure, go into Properties for the Project; under the Target Folder properties of the Build tab, set the Debug and Release directories to where you want PowerCOBOL to place the output. For instance, you can just set both of these to the same directory that you saved the project file in, so everything is in one directory.

For more information, see Chapter 7 Debugging the Program in the PowerCOBOL User’s Guide.

There is an example of modal dialog support called Modal on our web site at www.adtools.com.

The following is required:

486 or better

VGA display

Mouse or other pointer device, compatible with Microsoft Windows

16 MB of memory (32 MB or higher is recommended) for Windows 95

32 MB of memory (64 MB or higher is recommended) for Windows NT

65 MB of available hard disk space to install Fujitsu COBOL Standard Edition

90 MB of available hard disk space to install Fujitsu COBOL Professional

110 MB of available hard disk space to install Fujitsu COBOL Enterprise

Yes. In PowerCOBOL, you need to make corresponding adjustments to the controls and fonts on your form to accommodate a change in screen resolution.

This message appears when the loaded program (.DLL) does not match the debug file (.SVD). This can occur when the debugging DLL is an ActiveX control, but is not registered to the operating system. It can also occur if a same-named DLL has already been loaded, or if there is a mistake in the entry information of the Run-time Environment Window.

This phenomenon may occur on slower machines if the color palette of the System Display is set to 16-bit or to 256 colors; you can circumvent it by setting the color palette to High Color.

Yes. PowerCOBOL V4.0 has the ability to convert V3.0 projects into the V4.0 format.

Yes. For backward compatibility, V3.0 syntax is supported. However, you are encouraged to update your programs to the more object-oriented and component-based facilities in V4.0, on which future versions of PowerCOBOL will be based.

For more information on the Controls, Properties and Methods available in PowerCOBOL V4.0, including syntax descriptions and examples of each method, see the PowerCOBOL Reference and the on-line help for PowerCOBOL.

If you are going to close a form, but want to execute an event before the form begins to close, use the QueryClose event. If you set the POW-CANCEL parameter of the QueryClose event to true, you can cancel the close processing, leaving the form open.

On the other hand, if you want to execute an event after the form is closed, use the Closed event.

Property names in PowerCOBOL are not case sensitive; however, COBOL reserved words used in conjunction with property names are case sensitive.

For example, the following are equivalent:

MOVE "HELLO" TO "CAPTION" OF CMSTATIC1
MOVE "HELLO" TO "Caption" OF CMSTATIC1

However, because "Column" is a reserved word, the following are not equivalent:

MOVE 1 TO "Column" of CMTABLE1
MOVE 1 TO "COLUMN" OF CMTABLE1 *> Error

Although parameters between COBOL program can be passed BY CONTENT, BY REFERENCE or BY VALUE, parameters from a C program to a COBOL program can only be passed by reference. Thus, if you want to protect the value of a parameter in a main C program, you should save it to a temporary variable before the call.

There are examples of mixed-language programming between C and COBOL on our web site at www.adtools.com.

To debug production applications, the debug file (.SVD) and the source (.COB) have to be in the same directory as the application.  The application must be compiled with TEST. Also, the COBOL Debugger has to be available on the machine or network.

You can then just run the EXE, and on the Runtime Environment screen, specify

@CBR_ATTACH_TOOL=TEST

The application will be started under control of the debugger.