Extracting cobol source code from loadlib

vicky10001 · Active User Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 136

Hi,

We don't have cobol source code in my shop but we have loadlibs. I need to migrate to open system so I have the input file with VB size. Can we extract source code from loadlibs so that I will map the input data with layout and write a java program( I knew the logic everything but I need to have the layout for inputs file. Is there chance to reterive the soruce code or layout. Please let me know

Akatsukami · Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 5:37 pm

Bill Woodger · Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 5:52 pm

If you have no source code at all, for a system, then it looks like you have a package, software supplied by a third-party. If that is the case, then what you are doing sounds a bit like "reverse engineering", which is probably prohibited by the license which allows you to use the product.

So you'll have to explain a lot about the situation to convince anyone to provide help.

vicky10001 · Active User Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 136

Yes. you are correct. We are using a package. Just we need to find a layout from loadlib for couple of file. Let me know Is there any way to find source code from loadlib. I am not able to go by file since file type is VB and length also is more than 4k. Is there any tool available in marker for this conversion?

Bill Woodger · Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 6:56 pm

If the Licensor is happy for you to use the record-layout, they will supply it to you.

If they are not happy for you to use it, because they own it and your licence does not allow direct use of it, then you are going to be stuck.

How you are going to know/guess the use and content of several thousand bytes of data in any reliable manner unless it is documented for you, I don't know either.

You could of course request access/documentation from them, and, possibly at some cost, they may supply it.

Bill O'Boyle · Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 7:07 pm

The Source-Recovery Company of Roswell, Georgia, USA, can do this. They are the only one I know of -

www.source-recovery.com/

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 7:13 pm

Ed Goodman · Active Member Joined: 08 Jun 2011 Posts: 556 Location: USA

Are you sure it's COBOL?

I ask because your reasoning about it being VB and > 4K would not make much of a difference if trying to decode the layout.

There can only be one variable sliding section of a file layout as far as I know. The usual process is to have a fixed length section, and somewhere in there is a numeric field. That numeric field tells the number of occurrences of the variable section that follows.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember if you can have another fixed section after that or not.

So, if you're working with a 'traditional' COBOL program, that should be what you are seeing. However, if your file is really a line sequential, or a XML output, then you have a different challenge.