Herman, If the source code is lost, did the application promotion process (development ==> QA ==> Production) by any chance save the compiler listings? Source is *much* more easily recovered from a listing than from a load module. Recovery from a listing could be handled with some Rexx code (or your text-scripting language of choice).
Maybe it's my ISV background, but for most of my professional programming career I have believed that saving *all* of the outputs of a compile was *essential* to be able to provide production problem resolution, whether it's an abend or even just incorrect output. And I can well believe that the application programmers were not happy with disassembler output. I was involved a few years ago with a source recovery process for a couple of assembler modules, and even being an assembler whiz did not make the disassembler output very decipherable. Much work and many disassembly passes went into figuring out which was/were the base register(s) at different places in the code, which were the data register(s), for what data areas, etc. Just decoding the "standard" IBM macro output from object code can be difficult if you no longer have the version of the macros with which the original was compiled. BTDTGTTS. Decoding disassembler output to deduce COBOL source code is a job for serious code generation/optimization experts, not ordinary programmers (or even systems programmers). If the source code and listings are both truly lost, I do agree with other responses you have gotten that it's definitely a job for an expert third-party provider. HTH Peter > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Stocker, Herman > Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 11:50 AM > To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU > Subject: No Source for load modules not linkedited since 1980-90's > > We have a large number of modules that have link dates in the 80's and > 90's (still running, can that be done on windows and Unix platform?). We > want to reverse the modules to be able to go to LE and maybe even make > changes. > > Does any one know of any vendors and/or products on the market that can be > used to reverse engineer these modules - in COBOL. > > I have suggested the disassembler but the development people were not > happy with the output, Cobol people do not like assembler, go figure:-) > they are not assembler programmers and the disassembled code was > unreadable to them. > > Thank you. > > Regards, > Herman Stocker This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
