Targeting COBOL programs for certain environments

COBOL programs can run in CICS®, DB2®, and IMS™ environments.

COBOL programs for CICS

COBOL programs that are written for CICS can run under CICS Transaction Server. CICS COBOL application programs that use CICS services must use the CICS command-level interface.

COBOL programs for a DB2 environment

In general, the structure of your COBOL program is the same whether or not you want it to access a DB2 database. However, to retrieve, update, insert, and delete DB2 data, you must:

Connect to a data server.
Execute SQL statements. SQL statements must begin with EXEC SQL and end with END-EXEC.
Disconnect from the data server.

To prepare the program for execution, follow one of these procedures:

Precompile, compile, link, and bind the program.
Compile the program with the SQL option, and then link and bind the program.

COBOL programs for IMS

With Enterprise COBOL, you can invoke IMS facilities using the following interfaces:

AIBTDLI
AERTDLI
CBLTDLI call
Language Environment® callable service CEETDLI

You can also run object-oriented COBOL programs with IMS dependent regions that support Java™. You can mix the object-oriented COBOL and Java languages in a single application.