WHAT'S NEW IN ENTERPRISE COBOL for z/OS?

* CICS options in COBOL compiler listing with integrated CICS translator

* XML GENERATE enhancements

* Underscore in user-defined words and program names

* DB2 coprocessor enhancements

* Addition of ISO COBOL 2002 features and IBM extensions

* Exploitation of the latest z/Architecture and performance optimization of COBOL applications for various IBM z Systems servers, including IBM z13

* A new option, ARCH, enables users to specify which z/Architecture to optimize their applications for. Increasing performance of COBOL applications provides savings in CPU utilization and the ability to meet service-level agreements.

* Enhanced support for Java 7 and better control over generation of XML documents

* Enterprise COBOL V5.1 raised the total size of all data items in a working-storage or local-storage section to 2GB, and the maximum size of an individual data item to 999,999,999 bytes.

* New built-in functions are added to improve programmability of UTF-8 applications, thus improving COBOL applications’ ability to process UTF-8 data in DB2 and XML documents.

* To improve application maintainability, a new floating comment indicator (*>) is added for developers to use anywhere in the program-text area to indicate that the text on the line is a comment line.