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NEWS
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NEWS - user visible changes -*- outline -*-
GnuCOBOL 3.3 (planned ASAP)
work in progress
* New GnuCOBOL features
** cobc now checks for binary and multi-byte encoded files and early exit
parsing those; the error output for format errors (for example invalid
indicator column) is now limitted to 5 per source file
** support the COLLATING SEQUENCE clause on indexed files
(currently only with the BDB backend)
** support for time profiling of modules, sections, paragraphs, entries
and external CALLs. This feature is activated by compiling the modules
to be profiled with -fprof, and then executing the code with environment
variable COB_PROF_ENABLE. The output is stored in a CSV file. Further
customization can be done using COB_PROF_FILE, COB_PROF_MAX_DEPTH and
COB_PROF_FORMAT
** new runtime configuration COB_HIDE_CURSOR, allows to hide the cursor during
extended ScreenIO operations
** added multiple window functionality with new system function CBL_GC_WINDOW
more work in progress
* Changes that potentially effect recompilation of existing programs:
** runtime checks for invalid numerical data in emitter fields of MOVE or SET
statements are now performed only when at least one receiver field
is of category numeric or numeric-edited. This enables programming
patterns where invalid numerical data (e.g, SPACES) encode "absent"
data
* Important Bugfixes
** #904: MOVE PACKED-DECIMAL unsigned to signed led to bad sign
** Padding bytes of BCD may store a non-truncated digit; while
this has no effect on calculations it can create problems on
later binary comparison of the field as well as on group MOVEs
** #918: COB_LS_VALIDATE (io status 09 and 71) partial broken
* Changes to the COBOL compiler (cobc) options:
** New option --copy COPYBOOK to load copybooks before parsing files. This
option can typically be used to perform replacements without modifying
the source code, or to add prototypes for external calls.
** New option --include FILE.h to add a #include in the generated C file.
This option can typically be used to force the C compiler to check static
calls to externals. The files are put into quotes, unless they start by
'<'. Quoted files are expected to have absolute paths, as the C compiler
is called in a temp directory instead of the project directory.
** output of unlimited errors may be requested by -fmax-errors=0,
to stop compiliation at first error use -Wfatal-errors
** default value for -fmax-errors was changed from 128 to 20
** New option -fdiagnostics-absolute-paths to print the full path of
a file for diagnostics; this flag can be activated if your editor and
build system do not correctly work together to locate files from
diagnostic output
** New option -fdefault-file-colseq to specify the default
file collating sequence
** New options -M, -MP, -MG, -MD and -MQ to output COPY dependencies
to a file (see "Dependencies options" in the GnuCOBOL manual)
* More notable changes
** execution times were significantly reduced for the following:
comparison between a numeric DISPLAY variable to another or to a
literal comparison between numeric DISPLAY or BCD variable to zero
INSPECT CONVERTING (and "simple" INSPECT REPLACING), in general and
especially if both from and to are constants
** optimization of the two-pass preprocessing step of cobc: memory usage
and performance should be back close to the ones of 3.1.
* Changes in the COBOL runtime
** more substitutions in environment variables: $f for executable filename,
$b for executable basename, $d for date in YYYYMMDD format, $t for time
in HHMMSS format (before, only $$ was available for pid)
* New build features
** configure now uses pkg-config/ncurses-config to search for ncurses and
honors NCURSES_LIBS and NCURSES_CFLAGS
** configure now checks for iconv and accepts --with-iconv/--without-iconv;
this is used for character encoding support, which otherwise is only provided
partially
** configure now accepts --with-bugurl=URL which can be used to output a link
to an external or local URL (like file://) instead of the bug mailing list
** configure now accepts --with-pkgversion=PKG which can be used to customize
the version output with a free-standing string (like revision number or
package manager version)
** use the "default" -shared flag to build dynamic libraries on macOS
so as to fix testuite issues with recent macOS versions
** "make checkmanual" was extended to be also usable with tmux and
allows to override the test runner and to attach for screen/tmux sessions,
see README for further details
* Known issues in 3.x
** testsuite:
* if built with vbisam, cisam or disam, depending on the version used, some
tests will lead to UNEXPECTED PASS, while others may fail
* possibly failing tests (false positives):
* temporary path invalid
* compiler outputs (assembler)
* compile from stdin
* NIST: OBNC1M.CBL false positive (the test runner uses a nonportable way of
emulating a program kill)
* if build with -fsanitize, then some tests will fail; while we accept patches
to improve that, we don't consider the failing tests as bug in GnuCOBOL
** the recent additions of ">> TURN" and "variable LIKE variable" may not work
as expected in all cases
** floating-point comparison for equality may return unexpected results as it
involves a necessary tolerance; you may adjust the default tolerance of
0.0000001 by compiling GnuCOBOL for example with
LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS="-DCOB_FLOAT_DELTA=0.0000000000001";
we seek input for a reasonable default for GnuCOBOL 4 (use the mailing list
or discussion board to share your comments on this topic, keeping in mind
that this has to take both mathematical and "C compiler portability" into
account)
** variables containing PICTURE symbol P may lead to wrong results in rare
cases (especially screenio) - please send a bug report if you catch a case;
since GC 3.2 rc3 all arithmetic operations and MOVE are believed to be
correct
** features that are known to not be portable to every environment yet
(especially when using a different compiler than GCC)
* function with variable-length RETURNING item
* USAGE POINTER, which may need to be manually aligned
** all versions of GnuCOBOL so far: EVALUATE evaluates all subjects on *each*
WHEN (the standard explicit requests a one-time evaluation of the subjects,
then comparing the value); to work around possible issues move more complex
subjects like variables with subscripts and reference-modification, as well
as calculated subjects and function calls to a temporary variable and use
this as subject for the EVALUATE
For more known issues see the bug tracker.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GnuCOBOL 3.2 (20230728)
GnuCOBOL 3.2rc1 (20230118)
GnuCOBOL 3.2rc2 (20230210)
* New GnuCOBOL features
** Support for LINE SEQUENTIAL file type as per COBOL 2023
* OPEN INPUT-OUTPUT and REWRITE are allowed (note that INPUT-OUTPUT
leads to slower IO for LINE SEQUENTIAL files)
* validation of data on (RE-)WRITE and READ, active by default,
can be adjusted with the new runtime option COB_LS_VALIDATE
** New intrinsic functions
BIT-OF, BIT-TO-CHAR, HEX-OF, HEX-TO-CHAR
** Support for COBOL 2023 directive COBOL-WORDS
** Support for bit operations according to COBOL 2023 with MF compatibility
** Support for additional $SET directives: ODOSLIDE
** Support for the EXTFH has been greatly enhanched and now includes support
for FH--FCD and FH--KEYDEF, fixed use of different attributes and changing
pointers and now supports - for 32-bit builds - an internal conversion
between FCD2 and FCD3 for cases where existing programs are coded with FCD2
** OCCURS with multiple VALUEs supported (BS2000 format, FROM and TO pending)
** new function to call COBOL from C that doesn't abort the program in case
of runtime errors or STOP RUN: cob_call_with_exception_check()
** Support for the GCOS 7 (Bull) dialect, including:
* PICTURE strings with L character (variable length fields)
* CONTROL DIVISION with SUBSTITUTION SECTION (full support) and DEFAULT
SECTION (partial support)
** Multiple sequential files can be concatenated by specifying multiple
files with a separator in the ASSIGN name (either directly or via
environment), see the new runtime options
COB_SEQ_CONCAT_NAME (defaults to false) and COB_SEQ_CONCAT_SEP
** Initial "testing support" of CODE-SET clause to convert between ASCII and
EBCDIC on READ/WRITE/REWRITE for sequential and line-sequential files
** Initial "testing support" of FLOAT-EXTENDED (long double type)
** minimal "parsing support" for USAGE UTF-8 and UTF-8 literals
** Support to exit the runtime from COBOL as hard error (including possible
[core-]dump and stacktrace) with "STOP ERROR" statement or by
CALL "CBL_RUNTIME_ERROR"
** COB_PHYSICAL_CANCEL can now be configured as "never" to prevent unloading
of COBOL modules, both on CANCEL and on process exit, which is useful for
analysis tools such as callgrind or perf to keep all symbols until the end
of the COBOL process
** the system function x'91' has been extended to support more functions
* Changes that potentially effect existing programs:
** ALLOCATE statement: earlier versions of GnuCOBOL initialized the memory
(to binary zero) if the INITIALIZED clause was not specified,
this isn't done anymore so if you need the memory to be initialized
specify that explicit in the source and recompile
** variable-length RECORD SEQUENTIAL files, data validation on READ:
the length of the record as stored in the file is now checked for correct
format and is then compared against the record size defined in the program;
if the minimal record size specified is bigger, then the data is only
written up to the record length for that record, the other data is
undefined and io status 04 returned; if the record length is bigger than
the record size the record from the file is truncated, io status 04 set
and the following READ will start at the next record;
additionally on OPEN the length of the first record is read and if it
isn't within the above rulesan io status 39 is returned; as the default
format "COB_VARSEQ_TYPE = 0" contains two NULL bytes this will likely
make most LINE SEQUENTIAL files not declared as this type fail on OPEN
** LINE SEQUENTIAL files, data validation: in case of bad printable data
(less than SPACE) a READ may result in io status 09 and WRITE may error
with io status 71; see the new runtime option COB_LS_VALIDATE to disable
this validation (= old behavior) and to increase performance on line
sequential file io;
if LS_NULLS is active and invalid data (bad encoded or missing encoding)
is found io status 71 is returned
** LINE SEQUENTIAL files, handling of records that are "too long":
in case of "overflowing" records previous versions of GnuCOBOL cut the
data, set io status 00 and skipped the file until the next line
terminator is found;
the default changed (per COBOL 2023 and other compilers) so the data is
returned as "multiple" records and a warning (status 06) is issued;
setting COB_LS_SPLIT = false will have the old behaviour of truncating
the record, but will now set status 04
** FUNCTION RANDOM: the internal randomizer was changed from "C" to "GMP"
this means that the sequence of random numbers are different when using
the same seed as versions before 3.2
while the changed use has the downside of taking longer for each seeding,
it provides a much better distributed sequence and increases portability
(switching to a different "C" runtime or operating system won't change the
sequences); additional the implementor-defined default seeding was changed
from "0 in most cases" to a random seed;
if you _want_ the return values to be identical you always need to specify
a seed (including possibly 0);
the old behaviour can be enforced by compiling GnuCOBOL with
LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS=-DDISABLE_GMP_RANDOM
** FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION: if the source raising an exception was not
compiled with location information this function previously returned
a single space; GnuCOBOL now always returns the module name, a procedure-
name " " and the source (line) identifier "0"
** FUNCTIONs NUMVAL, NUMVAL-C, NUMVAL-F: if the argument does not match the
argument rules previous versions returned zero; now invalid data is skipped;
for example: "1. A-0B4.5" now returns -1.045 (or -1045 when the
DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA clause is in effect);
as with previous versions the argument can be validated before using the
FUNCTIONs TEST-NUMVAL, TEST-NUMVAL-C, TEST-NUMVAL-F or the exception can
be checked afterwards using the EXCEPTION related functions;
the old behaviour can be enforced by compiling GnuCOBOL with
LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS=-DINVALID_NUMVAL_IS_ZERO
** Handling of invalid numeric USAGE DISPLAY data:
previously the complete character was inspected and adjusted for conversion,
now only the second half-byte is used;
this yields in different results, for example both the zero and space
character in both ASCII and EBCDIC charset will now result in a numeric
zero; previously invalid data could result in huge or negative numbers in
internal intermediate items;
as this was both adjusted in the runtime and in the the generated modules
invalid data may have additional unexpected results if programs are not
recompiled
** ORGANIZATION INDEXED (with BDB backend): internal changes in record and
file locking, fixing some related bugs
** extended screen io with PDCurses (most Win32 builds): blink and bolding
are now enabled, when supported
** extended screen io: support for color codes 8-15 (implied highlight/blink
attribute); only the three lower bits are now considered during evaluation
of the color-number, leading to a previous value of 21 (which was ignored
until now) being interpreted as 5, see FR #387
** extended screen io with single-fields: runtime-adjustable attributes by
support of extension clauses COLOR and CONTROL for ACCEPT and DISPLAY
statements, see FR #189 + FR #355; note: while COLOR and CONTROL are parsed
for SCREEN SECTION they are ignored at runtime
** extended screen io with single-fields: the ACCEPT statement now supports
the extension CURSOR clause, additional to the standard-defined
CONTROL phrase in SPECIAL-NAMES
** the programmable runtime switches "SWITCH A" through "SWITCH Z" internally
used 1-26 and now use 11-36 to be able to combine then with switches 0-7;
if you set those via COB_SWITCH environment variables you need to adjust
their numbers
* Changes that potentially effect recompilation of existing programs:
** the reserved word list and intrinsic functions was updated, especially
to cater for new features of COBOL 2023; if compiling with any non-strict
dialect you may need to unreserve any conflicting words / functions
** in 64-bit environments, the default size for BY VALUE parameters has changed:
If no explicit SIZE IS clause is specified,
old behavior: parameter passed as 32-bit value
new behavior: parameter passed as 64-bit value
To specify a 32-bit BY VALUE parameter, change the COBOL source to use
SIZE IS 4. To continue to rely on the default size, both caller and
callee modules that use BY VALUE must be compiled with the same version of
GnuCOBOL, either prior this release, or since.
** cobc now uses a two-pass preprocessing algorithm, where replacements for
COPY-REPLACING are done in a first pass, and the replacements for
REPLACE are done in a second pass. Note that, however, both
statements are parsed before the first replacement pass, so
COPY-REPLACING cannot impact a REPLACE statement itself.
* Changes to the COBOL compiler (cobc) options:
** new -fformat dialect option, and extended SOURCE FORMAT directives,
with the following newly supported reference-formats (in addition
to FIXED/FREE):
COBOL85 Fixed-form format with enforcement of Area A
COBOLX GCOS 7 extended format
CRT ICOBOL Free-form format
TERMINAL ACUCOBOL-GT Terminal format
VARIABLE Micro Focus Variable Fixed-form format
XCARD ICOBOL xCard (extended card) format
XOPEN X/Open Free-form format
These formats come with Area A enforcement (except for XOPEN), that
checks whether division, section, and paragraph names start in Area
A (i.e, before margin B), and so do level indicators FD, SD, RD,
and CD, and level numbers 01, and 77. The underlying checks are
enabled or disabled by default using dialect option `areacheck`,
and then with `$SET AREACHECK` and `$SET NOAREACHECK` compiler
directives.
As a result of reference format being a dialect option, Area A
enforcement is available and enabled by default for dialects BS2000
COBOL, CA Realia II, COBOL85, GCOS COBOL, IBM COBOL, MVS/VM COBOL,
RM-COBOL, and X/Open COBOL.
Area A enforcement additionally enables detection of missing
periods before level numbers that lie in Area A in the DATA
DIVISION, and before paragraph and section names in the PROCEDURE
DIVISION. More generally, some, but not all, missing periods can
be reported and recovered from. This is configurable with option
`missing-period`.
If not specified, the compiler tries to automatically recognize the format,
using either fixed or free, depending on column 7 in the first non-space
line. This feature can be disabled by setting the format manually
with `-free`, `-fixed` or `-fformat`.
** the new -febcdic-table option enables one to specify the
translation table used when dealing with EBCDIC codeset;
these translation tables are stored as new configuration files with
an extension of ".ttbl", currently available tables are:
default translation to extended ASCII as per MF
alternate translation from restricted ASCII only
ebcdic500_ascii7bit EBCDIC 500 <-> 7-bit ASCII as per IBM
ebcdic500_ascii8bit EBCDIC 500 <-> 8-bit ASCII as per GCOS7
ebcdic500_latin1 EBCDIC 500 <-> latin-1 as per iconv
This option supersedes the -falternate-ebcdic flag (still available
for backwards compatibility), which is equivalent to
-febcdic-table=alternate.
** the compile flag -fodoslide was moved to a dialect configuration,
while -fodoslide still works as before it is now implied with
-std=ibm/mvs/bs2000, if you use those dialects consider to recompile
affected programs (with OCCURS DEPENDING ON) or compile with additional
-fno-odoslide to get the same results as with older GnuCOBOL versions
** the compile flag -fdefaultbyte (initialization for data-items without
an explicit VALUE) was moved to a dialect configuration;
while -fdefaultbyte still works as before it is now implied as binary
zero with -std=ibm/mvs/bs2000/realia, space for -std=mf/acu/rm, and
no defined initialization for -std=cobol85/cobol2002/cobol2014/xopen,
it is unchanged for -std=default (initialize to PICTURE/USAGE);
for compatibility to previous behavior compile with -fdefaultbyte=init;
note that initialization for INDEXED BY items honors the defaultbyte
configuration now, too
** new dialect init-justified that applies right justification by JUSTIFIED
clause for VALUE clause; this is applied to IBM dialects, if you want
the previous behavior compile with -fno-init-justified
** depending on the new dialect option "using-optional" (included in the
the default dialect), checks for arguments not passed are now done (only)
on CALL, not on their (possibly many) references; if you want the old
"postponed" check either specify the parameter as OPTIONAL or use
-fusing-optional=skip; note: the non-strict dialects will raise a warning
on the first use of this feature, then automatically enable it
** the dialect configuration option larger-redefines-ok was replaced by
the support option larger-redefines; if specified on the command-line
it is now -f[no-]larger-redefines instead of -f[no-]larger-redefines-ok,
which allows to also raise a warning for those with -flarger-redefines=warn
Note: the short one works both in current and older versions of cobc
** the subscript checking enabled with -fec=bound-subscript (implied with
--debug) now generates checks depending on the new dialect configuration
option subscript-check if OCCURS DEPNDING ON is used;
the full check according to ISO COBOL, which checks against the ODO item
is still used in the default dialect, but several dialects now only check
against the maximum only
** the GnuCOBOL extension of auto-adding the RECURSIVE attribute
if a program potentially calls its own PROGRAM-ID was moved
to a dialect option; it is now only active with -std=default
(and raises a warning as previously with -Wextra); if you want
to use this extension for other dialects use the new
-fself-call-recursive=warning (or "ok")
** the option -g does no longer imply -fsource-location; but it auto-includes
references to the COBOL-paragraphs to further ease source level debugging
** -fsource-location generates source references to copyboooks in DATA
DIVISION, enabling to inspect the initial VALUE setting as well as
"list"ing those copybooks with a source level debugger
** new flag -fstack-extended (implied with --debug and --dump) to include
the origin of entrypoints and PERFORM, this is used for the internal
stack trace on abort and can be used for improved source level debugging
** new flag -fmemory-check (implied with --debug) to do some validation
of internal memory used during CALL; this can help in finding otherwise
hard to diagnose overwrite of memory and as it is only done on CALL
has a much smaller footprint than -fec=bounds (as both check different
aspects at different places it is also reasonable to use both);
to disable it use -fmemory-check=none or limit by -fmemory-check=pointer
** the option -g does no longer imply -fno-remove-unreachable; if you want to
keep those in you need to explicit specify this
** the option -O0 now implies -fno-remove-unreachable
** new options to ensure structured code-flow:
-fsection-exit-check to ensure sections don't "fall through" (are always
entered and left by PERFORM)
-fimplicit-goback-check to ensure modules are not left by implicit GOBACK
at end of PROCEDURE DIVISION
** adjustments to warning options:
-Wconstant-expression was changed to a group warning and includes
the new, previously integrated, -Wconstant-numlit-expression
-Wtyping as a new warning raises only very suspicious MOVEs,
-Wstrict-typing, which will warn as before even for MOVE 1 TO PICX-FLD
is not included in -Wall any more
-Wlarger-01-redefines as new warning (enabled by -Wextra) to check for
the only larger REDEFINES that is explicit allowed by the COBOL standard
-Wno-unsupported -Wunsupported new option to disable or only warn
on use of features the runtime is not configured for;
this new option defaults to an error (= -Werror=unsupported)
-Wgoto-different-section as new warning (enabled by -Wall) to check for
GO TO that are likely to break the flow of PERFORM some-section
-Wgoto-section as new warning (enabled by default) to check for
GO TO a section instead of a paragraph; while allowed this is often
a coding error
-Wsuspicious-perform-thru (enabled by default) to check for PERFORM ranges
that are likely to create unwanted behaviour
-Wother now warns for suspicious reference-modification which is likely to
create out-of-bounds access at runtime
** new compiler command line option to list the known runtime exception names
and fatality `cobc --list-exceptions`
** new compiler command line option -ftcmd to enable printing of the command
line in the source listing, -fno-timestamp to suppress printing of the time
and -ftittle to set a title instead of GnuCOBOL and version (_ chars are
replaced by spaces in the title)
** new compiler command line option --coverage to instrument binaries
for coverage checks
** the command line options -MT and -MF, which are used for creating a
dependency list (used copybooks) to be used for inclusion in Makefiles
or other processes, and which were removed in GnuCOBOL 2 are back in their
original version; note: their use will be adjusted where they don't match
GCC's same options in later versions, including addition of -M and -MD
** new -std options:
gcos GCOS compatibility
gcos-strict GCOS compatibility - strict
We define the GCOS dialect based on the COBOL85 standard, with new
dialect configuration options accompanying each specificity
introduced by the dialect.
** new diagnostic format for errors: the diagnostics now print the source
code context with a left margin showing line numbers, configurable with
-fno-diagnostics-show-line-numbers, and possible to disable completely
with -fno-diagnostics-show-caret;
the option -fdiagnostics-plain-output was added to request that diagnostic
output look as plain as possible and stay more stable over time
** the -P flag accepts - as argument for stdout
* Important Bugfixes
** for dialects other than the GnuCOBOL default different reserved "alias" words
were not usable, for example SYNCHRONIZED or COMPUTATIONAL. This was fixed
and reserved words updated for the dialects "acu" (to ACUCOBOL-GT 10.4),
"ibm" (to Enterprise COBOL 6.3) and "mf" (to Micro Focus Visual COBOL 6.0)
** for all "lax" varants SYNC was handled even if commonly ignored by the strict
dialects, this was fixed so SYNC is ignored depending on the dialect
** COBOL programs compiled with versions before GnuCOBOL 3 that used files with
ORGANIZATION INDEXED or RELATIVE crashed when executed with newer versions,
this has been fixed so that all modules compiled with GnuCOBOL 2.2 can be
executed with GnuCOBOL 3.2
** FUNCTION RANDOM could return 1 in rare cases (more likely on win32),
it now returns a value in the range 0 <= x < 1, as defined
** the internal signal handler could crash or deadlock the process on hard
errors (either in called library functions or when running COBOL without
runtime checks); the signal handling is now completely rewritten to fix
this issue and all executed code from the signal handler but the COBOL data
dump is now signal and thread safe
** TYPEDEF items got storage and attribute assigned, leading to bigger modules,
longer loading time and longer compile times; if you use those a recompile
is highly suggested
** several bugs in COPY REPLACING / REPLACING were fixed along with adding
support for exensions related to REPLACING LEADING / TRAILING
** for PICTURE P several fixes were made, so results may vary compared with
previous versions; sources with *leading* P never worked correct before,
and *must* be recompiled after upgrading
** since its addition to GnuCOBOL ROUNDING MODE PROHIBITED just prevented
rounding; its behaviour changed to match the specification by doing that,
raising EC-SIZE-TRUNCATION and changed: not adjust the target field if
rounding would be necessary to store the data
* Listing changes
** the timestamp in the header was changed from ANSI date format like
"Tue Sep 28 09:49:43 2021" to formatted time (year after day); this may be
changed during `configure` with adding a define to COBC_CPPFLAGS;
to either use the old format, adding add `-DLISTING_TIMESTAMP_ANSI`,
or to use an explicit format (cut at 26 characters, may raise false-positives
in listing tests) e.g. date only `-DLISTING_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT="%Y-%m-%d"`
** new compile options to adjust the listing, see above
* More notable changes
** in general, the maximum field size in LINKAGE SECTION was increased from
268435456 bytes (999999998 bytes for OCCURS UNBOUNDED) to the system
specific INT_MAX - 1, which is commonly 2 GB
** in 64-bit environments, the maximum field size outside of LINKAGE SECTION
was increased from 268435456 bytes to 2 GB
** numeric DISPLAY can store and may contain a positive zero after arithmetic,
PACKED-DECIMAL may contain negative zero (x'0D') after arithmetic; as before
numeric comparisions to ZERO / 0 / +0 / -0 will all be identical
** quotes around filenames and parts that are resolved by environment variables
are internally ignored
** the exception check for EC-PROGRAM-ARG-MISMATCH is now generated, validating
that non-optional PROCEDURE DIVISION USING items are passed and that their
size in the caller is at least as big as in the program
** in case of any runtime features being used that are not available an error
is generated during compile (may be reduced to a warning by -Wunsupported
or be suppressed by -Wno-unsupported) and if the feature is actually used
at runtime a related exception status is set
** the call-stack show on error and/or in the dump file now contains all
parameters given to the program via command line options, if any;
if full debugging information is available it includes all PERFORMs executed
** the dump that is created on abort for all programs that were compiled with
-fdump can be explicit disabled by setting COB_DUMP_FILE=NONE; it is
automatically disabled if the process ends upon signals SIGINT/SIGTERM and
now also disabled upon SIGHUP/SIGPIPE
** additional or instead of the internal COBOL dump a coredump file may be
created on runtime errors and when configured in the system also after
the signal handler; see the new runtime option COB_CORE_ON_ERROR for
details (the default is a best match to the old behavior)
** source references shown in diagnostic messages and for trace at runtime
as well as during debugging were extended, for example each executed WHEN,
VARYING and UNTIL phrases are now seen
** condition-names are made available for source-level debugging
** cobc's parsing time was significantly reduced for big programs
** execution times were significantly reduced for the following:
INSPECT that use big COBOL fields (multiple KB)
MOVE and comparisions in general (especially with enabled runtime
checks, to optimize those a re-compile is needed)
CALL data-item, and first time for each CALL
ACCEPT DATE/TIME/DAY, most if numeric items are accepted
datetime related FUNCTIONs
runtime checks for use of LINKAGE/BASED fields and/or
subscripts/reference-modification (re-compile needed)
general: execution of programs generated with -fsource-location
(implied with --debug and -fec), especially when many "simple"
statements or lot of sections/paragraphs are used (re-compile needed)
* New system functions
CBL_GC_SET_SCR_SIZE option to resize extended screen
* New build features
** configure now honors BDB_LIBS and BDB_CFLAGS
** configure now honors MATH_LIBS
** configure now checks for XCurses and allows --with-curses=xcurses
(experimental)
** configure now checks for PERL and passes that as default to make test
** cobc handles SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH now, allowing to override timestamps in
generated code and listing files, allowing reproducible builds of both
GnuCOBOL (extras folder) and COBOL programs
* Obsolete features (will be removed in the next version if no explicit user
requests are raised)
** use of old non-GMP randomizer for FUNCTION RANDOM
** undocumented option -tsymbols, which was replaced by -ftsymbols in 3.0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GnuCOBOL 3.1.2 released (20201223)
GnuCOBOL 3.1.1 released (20201208) containing INITIALIZE bug #694
GnuCOBOL 3.1 released (20201111) had build issues that were fixed
* New GnuCOBOL features
** XML GENERATE statement
(note: runtime support needs additional library libxml2)
** JSON GENERATE statement
(note: runtime support needs additional library cJSON or JSON-C)
** CONTINUE AFTER statement (COBOL 2023) implemented, also handle fractions
of seconds in C$SLEEP now
** TYPEDEF and SAME AS (COBOL 2002) implemented, including the MicroFocus
and RM/COBOL variants
** >>TURN (COBOL 2002) directive implemented, allowing some exception checks
to be turned on/off per source as desired
** Improved support for different compiler extensions (ACUCOBOL, IBM,
Fujitsu, MicroFocus COBOL, Microsoft COBOL, RM/COBOL, CA Realia and more)
** file handling: include support for a callable EXTFH interface also provided
by several compilers including Micro Focus
This allows users to insert an external file handler while retaining
all the normal COBOL I/O functions with a possible callback to libcob.
To have the compiled program call `yourfh()` for file I/O use:
`cobc -fcallfh=yourfh`
In turn `yourfh()` may call `EXTFH()` to use I/O functions from GnuCOBOL.
The external file handler can also be directly invoked from COBOL, too,
using `CALL "EXTFH"`.
** Note: Not each flag contained in the FCD3 is handled already **
** file handling: added support for [RE]WRITE FILE file FROM source
** file handling: name mapping adjusted (improved MF and ACU-compatibility):
entries starting with a period or number are not resolved any more,
periods in the external identifier are always replaced by underscore
-> MY.FILE is resolved by DD_MY_FILE, dd_MY_FILE, MYFILE now;
prefixes "-F " and "-D " are removed from external names;
if filename is not absolute after translation, COB_FILE_PATH is now
still applied;
File name mapping now applies both to COBOL statements and CALLable
CBL_ and C$ file routines.
** Screen I/O: initial mouse support (for details see runtime.cfg),
use of CURSOR clause in SPECIAL-NAMES for positioning on ACCEPT
** on abort a stack trace will be generated, this can be suppressed by
runtime configuration option COB_STRACK_TRACE
** the dump that is generated on abort (depending on -fdump at compile-time)
was heavily improved and combines consecutive identical OCCURS items,
leading to smaller dump files
** changes in handling COPY statement:
* copybook names that contain an extension aren't searched with additional
extensions [as post-rc1-change this may be set to old behavior by
defining COB_MULTI_EXTENSION when building GnuCOBOL/cobc]
* library names are now tested for environment "COB_COPY_LIB_libname",
allowing the directory to specified externally (also as no-directory
by exporting with empty value) and has a fallback (with a warning) to
be effectively ignored (as previous versions did this)
* Removed functions
** SCREEN SECTION, REPORT-WRITER module: removed non-standard extension
"LINE / COL signed-integer" (inadvertently available since 2.2/3.0rc1);
which will now raise an error "unsigned integer expected";
if used replace by standard "LINE / COL +/- integer"
* Obsolete features (will be removed in the next version if no explicit user
requests are raised)
** support for Borland C compiler and linker
** -fif-cutoff flag for cobc (currently disabled, see entry below in 3.0rc1)
** old OpenCOBOL-only-EXTFH
* Changes to the COBOL compiler (cobc) options:
** new options:
-f[no]-ec=exception-name to tune the exception checks similar to the >>TURN
directive, you may also leave out the "EC-" prefix here, example to
enable all checks but disable all bound checks but OCCURS DEPENDING ON:
cobc -debug -fno-ec=bound -fec=bound-odo
** adjustments to warning options:
-Wextra "new" option to enable every possible warning that is not dialect
specific (this option used to be called -W)
-Wadditional new warning group for all warnings that don't have a group
on their own
-Wno-error and -Wno-error=<warning> to treat all or a specific <warning>
not as error
-Wdangling-text for raising the warning "source text after program area",
not included in -Wall any more
-Wno-ignored-error allows to suppress messages that normally would be an
error and are only allowed because they are never executed
-Wcorresponding is now enabled by default
-f[no]-diagnostics-show-option, enabled by default, shows the
command line option responsible for the diagnostic message
extra information to a warning (or error) is now marked as "note:"
** the internal Xref performance has improved, has all references in ascending
order now and includes the total amount of direct references
** the internal listing got a speedup and has all error references in
ascending order now
** cobc -g (and configure --enable-debug) use the most expressive
debugging options available on the system
** cobc -g now auto-includes references to the COBOL source file and to
all ENTRY and SECTION elements to ease source level debugging
** allow 3-byte CRT STATUS variable according to X/Open standard
* Changes in the COBOL runtime (libcob)
** messages from the COBOL runtime are also translated now (if installed);
to prevent this, disable translations in general with using the configure
option --disable-nls (or by deactivating ENABLE_NLS in config.h)
** first-time file-locking under Win32
** handle CRT STATUS either numerically, alphanumerically (4 digits) or as 3
bytes according to X/Open standard, depending on format and size
** execution times of INSPECT and INITIALIZE with OCCURS were heavily cut down,
to fully benefit from this a recompile is necessary
** libcob.h does no longer auto-include gmp.h (behavior since 2.x), if you link
against libcob and need cob_decimal include gmp.h/mpir.h yourself before;
otherwise you do not need it in your include path anymore
** convenience functions for direct C access to COBOL fields and for debugging
were added, see new C-API documentation
** Breaking change: previously the return-code of registered error handlers
(by CBL_ERROR_PROC) were ignored. This was changed according to the
documentation for CBL_ERROR_PROC -> a RETURN-VALUE of ZERO skips further
error handlers to be called, including the internal one.
* New build features
** Running the internal tests by make check now fails if the testsuite has any
unexpected result.
** The modules and test programs in the NIST COBOL-85 test suite (tests/cobol85)
may now be build and/or tested and/or the test results checked separately.
You now may also run the tests with a previous installed version of GnuCOBOL
(or a version specified by a manual temporary setup).
For details see tests/cobol85/README.
** new configure option --with-math=ARG to specify which math multiple precision
library is to be used, where ARG may be: check (default), gmp, mpir
** new configure options --with-xml2 / -without-xml2 to explicit force/disable
XML runtime support, otherwise it will be included if found as working
** new configure option --with-json / -without-json to explicit force/disable
JSON runtime support, otherwise it will be included if found as working
Note: As a special case you may built-in cJSON by placing its source in
the folder "libcob". If it is included there, this version will be compiled
into libcob. It may be enforced with --with-json=local,
like --with-json=cjson and --with-json=json-c enforce the given library.
** To adjust the build system for GMP/MPIR you may use the new variables
GMP_CFLAGS / MPIR_CFLAGS and GMP_LIBS / MPIR_LIBS.
If unset configure will try pkg-config.
** To adjust configure to use libxml2 you may use the new variables XML2_CFLAGS
and XML2_LIBS. If unset configure will use pkg-config / xml2-config.
** To adjust configure to use libcjson you may use the new variables CJSON_CFLAGS
and CJSON_LIBS, similar JSON_C_CFLAGS and JSON_C_LIBS for libjson-c.
If unset configure will use pkg-config.
** new configure option --enable-hardening to either enable GNU C's
hardening options or leave as-is, or disable (which previous versions
effectively did)
** build system: defaults.h is not created or included anymore, all configure
provided defines are now found in the single header config.h
** Any time after `make` you can call `pre-inst-env` script to use the still-
uninstalled binaries. Samples:
pre-inst-env cobc -xj prog.cob
pre-inst-env cobcrun -M prog start
pre-inst-env may also be called without parameters to start a new shell
session with the environment adjusted to use the uninstalled version.
* Too many bug fixes to list here (please check ChangeLogs for full details),
includes the following CVEs:
** compiler (may be triggered with special crafted source files)
CVE-2019-14468, CVE-2019-14486, CVE-2019-14528, CVE-2019-14541,
CVE-2019-16396, CVE-2019-16395
* GnuCOBOL's getopt implementation honors POSIXLY_CORRECT now:
if set to any value the option parsing in cobc, cobcrun and CBL_GC_GETOPT
stops at the first nonoption, otherwise it stays with the old behavior and
re-orders nonoptions to the end)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GnuCOBOL 3.0-rc1 released (20180422)
* New GnuCOBOL features
** REPORTWRITER module added
** INDEXED file handling: added support for sparse and split keys
** file handling: added support for [RE]WRITE FILE file FROM source
** DISPLAY ... UPON PRINTER may be redirected to an external command
(new runtime configuration COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_PIPE) or appended to a file
(new runtime configuration COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_FILE, which takes precedence)
** XML GENERATE statement
(note: runtime support needs additional library libxml2)
** JSON GENERATE statement
(note: runtime support needs additional library cJSON)
** Improved support for different compiler extensions (ACUCOBOL, IBM,
Fujitsu, MicroFocus COBOL, Microsoft COBOL, RM/COBOL and more)
** Parser support for many features of different compilers, for example
PIC 1 / USAGE BIT, ACUCOBOL extensions for graphical controls
VALIDATE statement and much more.
Most of them will be fully implemented in a later version...
** Option to dump (partial) data of modules on abort.
Use new cobc option -fdump=<scope> to prepare the module and optional
use new runtime configuration options COB_DUMP_FILE and COB_DUMP_WIDTH
to adjust the dump.
** C interface: new functions cob_set_runtime_option / cob_get_runtime_option
to set/get special runtime options (currently FILE * for trace and printer
output) or to reload the runtime configuration after changing environment
** file handling: include support for a callable EXTFH interface also provided
by several compilers including Micro Focus
This allows users to insert an external file handler while retaining
all of the normal COBOL I/O functions with a possible callback to libcob.
To have the compiled program call `yourfh()` for file I/O use:
`cobc -fcallfh=yourfh`
In turn `yourfh()` may call `EXTFH()` to use I/O functions from GnuCOBOL.
The external file handler can also be directly invoked from COBOL, too,
using `CALL "EXTFH"`.
** Note: Not all flags contained in the FCD3 are handled already **
* Changed cobc options:
** The option -debug (runtime checks) no longer implies -ftrace (option to
trace program flow of the generated module with COB_SET_TRACE).
You may specify -ftrace[all] along -debug if you want to use this feature.
** The option -E (preprocess file) does not imply an output file any more.
If no output file is explicit specified with -o filename.i the output will
be written to stdout (behavior of versions 1.1 is restored).
Requesting output to stdout explicit by using a dash as output name is
also possible.
** Changed options for listing:
The option -tsymbols was replaced by -ftsymbols and therefore can now also
be explicit deactivated by specifying -fno-tsymbols.
New options for suppressing (or explicit requesting) parts of the listing:
-fno-theader suppress all headers from listing while keeping page breaks
-fno-tmessages suppress warning and error summary from listing
-fno-tsource suppress actual source from listing (for example to only
produce the cross-reference)
** The option -fif-cutoff (option to change generated C sources to use
a label + goto for nested if/else) was deactivated to allow the C compiler
to fully control the program flow.
** Please report if you have a need for this option as it will be **
** removed permanently in the next release of GnuCOBOL otherwise. **
* Changes in the COBOL runtime (libcob)
** updated exception handling, GnuCOBOL now only cleans raised exceptions when
requested by SET LAST EXCEPTION TO OFF
** The standard-format for program tracing was changed and is now adjustable
by the runtime configuration option COB_TRACE_FORMAT.
* New build features
** New test suite for manual tests (especially SCREEN I/O),
run with `make checkmanual`.
Note: You may want to adjust the test runner tests/run_prog_manual.sh which
defaults to xterm in GUI environments and screen in terminal environments.
** new configure option --enable-debug-log to allow *internal* tracing
of GnuCOBOL (intended for developers of GnuCOBOL only)
* Too many bug fixes to list here (please check ChangeLogs for full details).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GnuCOBOL 2.2 released (20170906)
* Move to GPL/LGPL 3
* Most noteworthy new GnuCOBOL features (too many to list them all)
** User Defined Functions, FUNCTION-ID.
** New intrinsic functions
ABSOLUTE-VALUE alias for ABS
CURRENCY-SYMBOL CURRENCY-SYMBOL of the current program
FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE ISO 8601 datetime function
FORMATTED-DATE ISO 8601 datetime function
FORMATTED-DATETIME ISO 8601 datetime function
FORMATTED-TIME ISO 8601 datetime function
TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME ISO 8601 datetime function
INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE date to integer
HIGHEST-ALGEBRAIC now implemented
LOWEST-ALGEBRAIC now implemented
LOCALE-COMPARE now implemented
NUMVAL-F now implemented
TEST-NUMVAL now implemented
TEST-NUMVAL-C now implemented