After moving to isCOBOL Evolve, what am I maintaining – COBOL or Java source code? Also, what happens to highly commented COBOL code? [-]With isCOBOL Evolve, it is up to you as to whether or not the best route forward is to continue programming and maintaining code in COBOL or the Java programming language. isCOBOL Evolve enables you to choose between continuing to use proven COBOL development code for as long as appropriate, or moving to Java technology when that becomes a better fit for your business.
In terms of highly commented COBOL code, the Java intermediate source code produced by the isCOBOL Compiler is not intended to be maintained. So it does not include the comments from the original COBOL source code. If you need to fix bugs, or add new functionality, you can continue to perform these operations in COBOL for as long as desired. There is no need to read or maintain the Java intermediate source because you can extend isCOBOL through Java technology without it. By default, the Java intermediate source files are temporary and are deleted by the isCOBOL Compiler when it is finished using them. However, you can specify the “–jj” compiler option at any time if you want to save these Java source files.
If you want to switch from COBOL programming to Java programming down the road, your business would likely wrap its COBOL programs in objects using Object-Oriented COBOL or Java for future use. In this case, your Java programmers would write new code in the Java programming language that would access the Java objects produced from the isCOBOL code. After compilation with isCOBOL Compiler, the COBOL programs are Java classes (i.e. .class files), and can be used by other Java classes without regard for the fact that they were originally written in COBOL. This way a Java developer would never need to look at the source because they would treat the COBOL at that point just like any other Java object.
Here is an example of a COBOL statement and the corresponding Java intermediate source code:
- COBOL:
77 MY-DATA-ITEM PIC X(100).
…
INSPECT MY-DATA-ITEM REPLACING TRAILING SPACES BY LOW-VALUE.
- Java intermediate code:
private com.iscobol.types.PicX MY-DATA-ITEM;
…
MY_DATA_ITEM=Factory.getVarAlphanum(wsMem,0,100,false,null, null,null,"MY-DATA-ITEM",false,false);
…
MY_DATA_ITEM.inspect($485$ , $486$);
…
static final PicX $485$=Factory.getStrLiteral(" ");
static final LiteralAll
$486$=Factory.getAllLiteral(new byte[] {0});
Notice that MY-DATA-ITEM has been converted to an object, and the INSPECT statement has been converted to code which invokes the ‘inspect’ method of the MY-DATA-ITEM object. The ‘inspect’ method takes two parameters which are generated as Java objects later on in the source.
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