Symbolic debug data sets

If you want to run COBOL interactive debug on a program compiled with the OS/VS COBOL compiler, you must use the Data Set utility (option 3.2) to allocate a symbolic debug data set before compiling the program. Then, when you compile the program, enter TEST in the Test field on the Foreground OS/VS COBOL Compile panel. The TEST parameter generates the debug output, which ISPF stores in the symbolic debug data set you allocated.

Note: You do not need to allocate a symbolic debug data set for programs compiled with VS COBOL II because the debug output, if requested, is stored in the OBJECT module, which ISPF generates automatically.

When you allocate the data set, specify the same name as the data set that contains your COBOL program, but:

For an ISPF library, enter:
- The Group name you will specify in the first Group field on the Foreground OS/VS COBOL Compile panel
- SYM in the Type field.
For another partitioned or sequential data set, use SYM to replace the last qualifier. For example, if COBOL.INPUT or COBOL is the input data set name, allocate COBOL.SYM as the symbolic debug data set.

Use these values to allocate symbolic debug data sets:

Record format . . . . . F
Record length . . . . . 512
Block size  . . . . . . 512

For partitioned data sets, including ISPF libraries, the debug output is stored in a member with the same name as the input member. For sequential data sets, the debug output is stored in a sequential data set.

When you run COBOL interactive debug, the names you put in the Prog ID field on the COBOL Interactive Debug panel must be the same as the input member names if you are to create a correct SYM data set.