I did some IBM beta work for CICS/OS2 many, many years ago. It too had teething problems with the translator. If I remember correctly the problems centered on comments, specification of hex strings, and continuation lines. After working with some people in Raleigh, it was easier and quicker to just tell the customer to adjust the source to fit the translator and move on. At that time the IBM motto was "If you can't fix it, feature it".
-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Shirey Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 8:35 AM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: COBOL/CICS Integrated Translator We recently started using the Integrated Translator for our CICS/COBOL programs and came across something interesting. We apparently have some programs where some EXEC CICS statements start in Area A - the columns between 8 and 11 - and these programs had always successfully translated/compiled. Now, they fail to compile with the integrated translator. Interestingly, they fail on the END-EXEC statement which also starts in Area A but not the EXEC CICS statement. We reported the behavior to IBM and they ran some tests and confirmed what we were seeing. 'With the CICS CoProcessor, I get no message for the EXEC CICS coded in col 8-11: IGYPS0009-E "END-EXEC" should not begin in area"A". It was processed as if found in area "B". This causes RC=8 for the compilation. However, using the separate translator, you get: DFH7278I W 000nn EXEC COMMAND SHOULD NOT BEGIN IN AREA A. IT WAS PROCESSED AS IF FOUND IN AREA B. Since this is a warning, the Precompiler ends with RC=4. The EXEC CICS statement is processed and the original becomes a comment, so it does not cause a compiler error. This is not documented in either the Enterprise COBOL Programming Guide or Migration Guide and we are reviewing that.' I believe they are telling me that they are going to update the documentation so that this behavior is documented, but I'm thinking that this violates that old Principle of Least Astonishment rule. Either both the EXEC and the END-EXEC statements should be disallowed in Area A, or the END-EXEC should be treated like a comment so the compile is successful as before. Does that sound unreasonable? Thanks Greg Shirey Ben E. Keith Company ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
