Changes in IBM® Enterprise COBOL for z/OS, Version 4 Release 2

  • New and enhanced XML PARSE capabilities are available when you use the z/OS® System Services XML parser:
    • You can parse documents with validation against an XML schema when you use the VALIDATING phrase of the XML PARSE statement.
    • The performance of nonvalidating parsing with the XMLPARSE(XMLSS) compiler option is improved compared to the performance of nonvalidating parsing with the XMLPARSE(XMLSS) compiler option in Enterprise COBOL Version 4 Release 1.
    • Character processing is enhanced for any XML document that contains a reference to a character that is not included in the single-byte EBCDIC code page of the document.
  • A facility for customizing compiler messages (changing their severity or suppressing them), including FIPS (FLAGSTD) messages, is made possible by a new suboption, MSGEXIT, of the EXIT compiler option.
  • A new compiler option, BLOCK0, activates an implicit BLOCK CONTAINS 0 clause for all eligible QSAM files in your program.
  • The underscore character (_) is now supported in user-defined words such as data-names and program-names. Underscores are also supported in the literal form of program-names.
  • If you use the integrated CICS® translator, the compiler listing will now show the CICS options that are in effect.
  • Enterprise COBOL applications that use object-oriented syntax for Java™ interoperability are now supported with Java 5 and Java 6 in addition to the Java SDK 1.4.2.