COBOL12 Reference

DISCLAIMER

This system is provided free of any charge and without any restrictions as to its use. As such, the user takes full responsibility for its use and application. The developer accepts no responsibility in any way for the use of this system, in whole or in part.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BTRIEVE
The BTRIEVE indexed sequential file system was devel;oped by Novell and is now distributed by Pervasive Software. The program BTRIEVE.Exe included here is an earlier version of the system and Pervasive Software have made no objection to its being be made available with this system, but with no supporting software or manuals. You may visit their site to inspect their latest products at
http://www.pervasive.com/

A86 ASSEMBLER
This entire system has been developed with the A86 assembler developed by Eric Isaacson Software. If you are into assembler programming, this is the assembler to use. You may visit their site at
http://eji.com/

INTRODUCTION

The COBOL12 compiler was originally based on Ansi74, but has undergone many changes since its inception. It does not include some features such as SORT and STRING, but it has many non-standard features included.
Indexed sequential files are supported by the standard COBOL statements for these files, and by the provision of the BTRIEVE indexed file system.
These COBOL programs automatically use video mode 12H, a graphical mode of 640 by 480 pixels, 30 text lines of 80 characters each, and 16 colours. Programs have no direct ability for graphical display on the screen.
Two non-standard modules are included to provide the program interface to the screen.

INSTALLATION

The COBOL12 system is contained in the download file C12Sys.Zip. Executing this file provides COBOL12.Zip and ReadMe.Txt. Following the instructions in ReadMe.Txt installs the system files in the following directories.


\COBOL12
   Ecob.Com       The source file editor
   Ecob.Bat       The batch file to load the editor
   Ecob.Ico       A desktop icon that can be used with Windows
   Ecob.Swl       The help file
   Skeleton.Cob   The skeleton source program used by Ecob
   Vidpop.Com     The utility to display Ecob help screens
   Ccob.Com       The compiler
   ErrDescr.Dat   Error descriptions used by Ccob
   Run.Com        The runtime control program
   Btrieve.Exe    The indexed sequential TSR program
   Video.Com      Reset video mode to 03H (normal) -
                    Required only if the system fails

   \DEMO          Demonstration programs
      ScrDemo.Cob .Run .Bat   Screen module demonstration
      FmtDemo.Cob .Run .Bat   Format module demonstration
      Roses.Cob   .Run .Bat .Dat   Simple database demonstration
   \DOC           Documentation
      Manual.Com  Program to print the manual
      Manual.Txt  The manual text file

The following programs are required when running a compiled program. Run.Com Runtime control, for .Run programs only. Btrieve.Exe If your program uses indexed sequential files.

COMPATIBILITY

COBOL12 is a 16-bit system designed to run under DOS. It also functions in Windows 3.1, 95 and 98. Other Windows systems do not run in DOS, but provide their own crippled version of DOS, so there may be problems in running this system in those Windows environments.

CONTENTS

Ecob - COBOL Editor

Ccob - COBOL Compiler

Lcob - COBOL Linker

Run - Runtime program

COBOL Language Reference

Date definition and handling

File handling

Screen Format module

Screen Input-output module