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GnuCOBOL is a free COBOL compiler licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL).
It implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85, COBOL 2002 and COBOL 2014 standards, as well as many extensions included in other COBOL compilers.

GnuCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using the native C compiler on various platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

This package contains the following subdirectories:

  • cobc COBOL compiler
  • libcob COBOL run-time library
  • bin COBOL driver program
  • build_aux Helper scripts
  • lib Helper routines for missing OS functionality
  • config Configuration files
  • po International messages
  • doc 'info' and PDF files
  • tests Test suite (GnuCOBOL and framework for COBOL85)
  • extras useful COBOL programs

All programs except those in lib and libcob are distributed under the GNU General Public License. See COPYING for details.

Programs in lib and libcob are distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License. See COPYING.LESSER for details.

Requirements

GnuCOBOL uses other software packages, some of these are necessary, some optional. See DEPENDENCIES.md for a complete list.

If building GnuCOBOL from source, you can choose which optional functionality to include via the configure script. When using pre-built binaries -- for example, via your OS package manager -- the packager will have made those choices for you.

Building from source

GnuCOBOL is built and installed using the configure script generated by GNU autotools. If you're unfamiliar with configure, see the INSTALL file for detailed information about it. Special requirements and further installation notes are listed below.

We recommend creating a build directory; these instructions assume your build directory is build, a sub-directory of the source tree root, and that that is your current working directory. These instructions redirect the configuration and compilation messages to a file, partly to avoid a slew of messages scrolling off the screen, and to make any errors more prominent.

To see the list of configuration options, use ../configure --help.

By default, the configured PREFIX is /usr/local. That means the binaries will be installed to /usr/local/bin, libraries to /usr/local/lib, and so on. The PREFIX may be changed by specifying --prefix=<dir> configure option. Other options control other install directories.

Once you've decided on your options, generate the build tree with

  • ../configure [options] > log

and build the compiler and run-time library with

  • make > log

Tests

To verify GnuCOBOL works before installing it, run the internal testsuite. Simply do

  • make check > log

This MUST succeed. Please report any failures.

Also included are COBOL85 standard tests provided by the NIST.
They are run with

  • make test > log

If the the COBOL85 testsuite is not already in the build- or source-tree, make test will download it. For details see tests/cobol85/README.

** NOTE ** The language interpreter perl is required to run COBOL85 tests.

If you want to run both testsuites you can run

  • make checkall

You may also optionally perform a series of semi-manual tests to verify a working extended screenio.

  • make checkmanual

The test execution is automatic but the user needs to check for the expected result. See tests/run_prog_manual.sh for tweaking the test runner used (which is otherwise deduced from the environment), either in that script or via TESTRUNNER environment variable.

** NOTE ** The semi-manual tests need either xterm, GNU screen or tmux installed and will run within a detached cmd.exe on MSYS based systems otherwise. For running with screen or tmux execute the following from a separate terminal, directly after running the testsuite: tests/run_prog_manual.sh attach ... and leave that using exit at the end of the tests

Installation

To install GnuCOBOL, including the compiler, run-time library, and documentation,

  • make install > log

Unless you have taken steps to ensure you can create files in the PREFIX directory, you'll probably need super-user privileges for this step.

Un-installation

You can get back to a clean installation status by running

  • make distclean

ISAM Support

The following is only interesting for advanced use.

The COBOL language supports the use of ISAM files. Unlike mainframe operating systems, those that GnuCOBOL runs on do not include any record-oriented system services. GnuCOBOL can either be built without ISAM support, or with it, in which case the support may by provided by one of several libraries. The choice is expressed as a configure option.

To exclude ISAM support, use

  • --without-db You will not be able to use indexed I/O

By default, ISAM support is provide by Berkeley DB. You can say so explicitly with --with-db. Or you can select from one of the following options,

  • --with-cisam to use CISAM
  • --with-disam to use DISAM
  • --with-vbisam to use VBISAM

Development

If you wish to hack the GnuCOBOL source or build from version control, see HACKING.

Further information about the project, including the source code repository, history, and frequently asked questions, may be found at