The IS EXTERNAL-FORM clause associates a group item with HyperText Markup Language (HTML) data using the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) specification, is now supported.

isCOBOL already provided a more powerful syntax but having EXTERNAL-FORM clause could dramatically speed-up migration of existing CGI COBOL programs to isCOBOL.

Embedded HTML is another option to enable you to output HTML directly from a COBOL CGI program. Using Embedded HTML, you can output HTML statements, complete or partial HTML pages, or a combination of both, without including any special data declarations. HTML files that contains substitution marker can be merge with COBOL variable data.

Embedded HTML support is enabled in isCOBOL compiler turned on the HTML precompiler with a special option -exec=html.

Support of Embedded HTML could dramatically speed-up migration of existing CGI COBOL programs to isCOBOL.

Enhanced HTTPHandler class adding the ability to process html string with the new method:

This method is similar to the existing processHtmlFile() method, the difference is that the HTML code is contained in the alphanumeric variable txt instead of in a external file.

var must be an XML variable whose names correspond to the embedded values in the string. Example:

Enhanced HTTPClient class to post Multipart and download binary file with the new methods:

The first method is analogous to doPost, however it send the parameters using the multipart/form-data protocol.

The second method allows to save the response received from the web server in the specified binary file. Example:

Enhanced HTTPData.Params class to add files in parameters with the new methods:

These methods allow to use the previous doPostMultipart method in HTTPClient class. The latter set the mime type of the file as "application/octet-stream". Example: