I am wondering, what is the original version and name of the cobol used in the normal ibm mainframe, how many types of cobol are there and can u please suggest me what are the different versions of cobol in the whole mainframe world, what is vs cobol II, micro focus cobol, cobol mvs/esa, vs cobol III, ibm cobol...Can anyone please just hilite which cobol is for which mainframe computer, no need of deep understanding jus the versions... I am really confused by reading many answers ? thanks a lot in advance.
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 8696 Location: Dubuque, Iowa, USA
There are COBOL variants other than what is in the link enrico posted, however these COBOL variants (such as the Micro Focus COBOL you mentioned) tend not to run on the mainframe -- or if they do run on a mainframe, they are not widely used on it.
IIRC, and it's quite possible I don't, the first COBOL available on what is now referred to as a mainframe was System/360 COBOL, available on the System 360 machines back in the mid to late 1960's. I was using a 360/30 as late as 1974 or 1975, but I don't remember what the COBOL was called on it.
Joined: 23 Nov 2006 Posts: 19244 Location: Inside the Matrix
Hello,
It is not really clear what you want to learn. . . .
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what are the different versions of cobol in the whole mainframe world
If you really mean the whole mainframe world, there are mainframe systems that are not IBM mainframes. . .
Quote:
I am really confused by reading many answers
If you explain the confusion, someone may be able to clarify.
For my $.02, the only cobol compiler that one needs to be concerned about is the one in use on that particular system. If you change systems regularly (as some of us do), you learn to find out quickly what is used in your current environment.
So you mean to say that there are other version's of mainframe other than IBM , which use different versions of COBOL. I am clear from the google with the search key " history of cobol" , and got version like cobol 68, 74.85 and 2002 where as in the IBM site I got other versions like OS/VS COBOL V1.2.4
VS COBOL II V1.3.x
VS COBOL II V1.4.0
COBOL/370™ 1.1
COBOL for MVS & VM V1R2
COBOL for OS/390 & VM V2R1
COBOL for OS/390 & VM V2R2
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS & OS/390 V3R1
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS & OS/390 V3R2
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS V3R3
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS V3R4
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS V4R1
so what is the difference between 'cobol for mvs & VM' and 'Enterprise cobol ', you mean its just an updated version....and any idea like which mainframe will use micro-focus cobol. So my understanding is IBM mainframe's earlier version of cobol is VS COBOL II and now its been updated to Enterprise COBOL, is that right. And is anybody using COBOL 2002 which I read that its an objected oriented COBOL. Is it a failure ?
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 8696 Location: Dubuque, Iowa, USA
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and any idea like which mainframe will use micro-focus cobol.
What are you calling a mainframe? And why are you not using the Micro Focus web site to answer this?
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version like cobol 68, 74.85 and 2002
These are not versions in the sense that they are compilers. They are the standards put out by the international COBOL standards committees that have defined what COBOL is over the years. IBM does not have a COBOL 74 compiler -- they have compilers that are compliant with COBOL 74 to some degree.
The types of questions you're asking sound like student questions. You really need to go to the manuals section and read the COBOL material. The questions you're asking may have quite complex answers, such as from the Language Reference:
Quote:
APPENDIX1.7 Appendix G. Industry specifications
Enterprise COBOL supports the following industry standards:
* ISO COBOL standards
o ISO 1989:1985, Programming languages - COBOL
ISO 1989:1985 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23-1985 (R2001), Programming Languages - COBOL
o ISO/IEC 1989/AMD1:1992, Programming languages - COBOL: Intrinsic function module
ISO/IEC 1989/AMD1:1992 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23a-1989 (R2001), Programming Languages - Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL
o ISO/IEC 1989/AMD2:1994, Programming languages - Correction and clarification amendment for COBOL
ISO/IEC 1989/AMD2:1994 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23b-1993 (R2001), Programming Language - Correction Amendment for COBOL
All required modules are supported at the highest level defined by the standard.
The following optional modules of the standard are supported:
o Intrinsic Functions (1 ITR 0,1)
o Debug (1 DEB 0,2)
o Segmentation (2 SEG 0,2)
The Report Writer optional module of the standard is supported with the optional IBM COBOL Report Writer Precompiler and Libraries (5798-DYR).
The following optional modules of the standard are not supported:
o Communications
o Debug (2 DEB 0,2)
* ANSI COBOL standards
o ANSI INCITS 23-1985 (R2001), Programming Languages - COBOL
o ANSI INCITS 23a-1989 (R2001), Programming Languages - Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL
o ANSI INCITS 23b-1993 (R2001), Programming Language - Correction Amendment for COBOL
All required modules are supported at the highest level defined by the standard.
The following optional modules of the standard are supported:
o Intrinsic Functions (1 ITR 0,1)
o Debug (1 DEB 0,2)
o Segmentation (2 SEG 0,2)
The following optional modules of the standard are not supported:
o Communications
o Debug (2 DEB 0,2)
* International Reference Version of ISO/IEC 646, 7-Bit Coded Character Set for Information Interchange
* The 7-bit coded character set defined in American National Standard X3.4-1977, Code for Information Interchange
Enterprise COBOL has the following restrictions related to COBOL standards:
* OPEN EXTEND is not supported for ASCII-encoded tapes (CODE-SET STANDARD-1 or STANDARD-2).
* When division by zero occurs in an arithmetic expression and an ON SIZE ERROR phrase is not specified, processing abnormally terminates.
* The overlay capability of the segmentation module is not supported.
See the Enterprise COBOL Programming Guide for specification of the compiler options and Language Environment runtime options that are required to support the above standards.
Enterprise COBOL supports OO to some degree, although I've never tested any of these features and could not tell you how complete the support is. Does that mean it is COBOL 2002 compliant? Nope, but it doesn't mean it's not either -- you'd have to dig much deeper to determine that.
