The XML GENERATE statement has been extended with new syntax that
gives the programmer more flexibility and control over the form of
the XML document that is generated:
The WITH ATTRIBUTES phrase, which causes eligible items in the
XML document to be generated as XML attributes instead of as elements.
The WITH ENCODING phrase, which allows the user to specify the
encoding of the generated document.
The WITH XML-DECLARATION phrase, which causes the version and
encoding information to be generated in the document.
The NAMESPACE and NAMESPACE-PREFIX phrases, which allow generation
of XML documents that use XML namespaces.
The XML GENERATE statement now supports generation of XML documents
encoded in UTF-8 Unicode.
XML PARSE support has been enhanced:
The z/OS® System
Services XML parser is now supported as an alternative to the existing
XML parser that is part of the COBOL library
The z/OS System
Services XML parser provides the following benefits:
Availability of the latest IBM® parsing
technology for COBOL users.
Offloading of COBOL XML parsing to zAAP specialty processors.
Improved support for parsing XML documents that use XML namespaces.
Direct support for parsing XML documents that are encoded in UTF-8
Unicode.
Support for parsing very large XML documents, a buffer at a time.
Four new special registers are introduced for namespace processing
during execution of XML PARSE statements.
The XML PARSE statement has been extended with new syntax. The
new WITH ENCODING and RETURNING NATIONAL phrases give the programmer
control over the assumed encoding of input XML documents, to facilitate
parsing in Unicode.
A new compiler option, XMLPARSE, has been created to control whether
the z/OS System
Services parser or the existing COBOL parser is used for XML PARSE
statements. With the XMLPARSE(COMPAT) option, XML parsing is fully
compatible with Enterprise COBOL 3.
With the default XMLPARSE(XMLSS) option, the z/OS System Services
parser is used and new XML parsing capabilities are enabled.
Performance of COBOL application programs has been enhanced by exploitation of new IBM z/Architecture® instructions. The performance of COBOL
Unicode support (USAGE NATIONAL data) has been significantly improved.
Db2® support
has been enhanced in this release, including DB2® 9 exploitation and improvements in coprocessor
integration and usability:
Support for new SQL data types and new SQL syntax provided by DB2 9
Db2 precompiler
options are shown in the compiler listing (DB2 9 only)
SQLCA and SQLDA control blocks are expanded in the compiler listing
(all Db2 releases)
A new compiler option SQLCCSID is provided to coordinate the coded
character set id (CCSID) between COBOL and Db2
Support for DFSMS large-format data sets
Debugging enhancements:
Debug Tool 8 enablement, new debugging commands
GOTO/JUMPTO in optimized code, new TEST suboption EJPD
Compiler options can be specified in a data set (OPTFILE option)
Cross-reference of COPY statements, libraries, and data sets in
compiler listing