Upgrading Enterprise COBOL Version 4 programs that have XML PARSE statements

You can refer to the following guidelines for upgrading Enterprise COBOL Version 4 programs that have XML PARSE statements.

Whether you were using the COMPAT XML parser that is part of the COBOL runtime library or the the z/OS® System Services XML parser with previous versions of Enterprise COBOL, you most likely do not need to make any code changes for Enterprise COBOL 5 or 6.

If you were using the z/OS System Services XML parser with Enterprise COBOL Version 4.2, you do not need to make any code changes for COBOL 5.2 and 6. Originally, Enterprise COBOL V5.1 did not have an XMLPARSE compiler option and required the XMLSS parser. However, with current service applied, V5.1 is the same as V5.2 in this area, and both have the XMLPARSE compiler option so that you can choose the same parser in 5 and 6 that you used with earlier versions of Enterprise COBOL.

If you were using the z/OS System Services XML parser with Enterprise COBOL Version 4.1, consider information in Upgrading Enterprise COBOL Version 4 Release 1 programs that have XML PARSE statements and that use the XMLPARSE(XMLSS) compiler option.

If you use the COMPAT XML parser that is part of the COBOL runtime library with Enterprise COBOL Version 4 and Version 3, you most likely do not have to change your code. The COMPAT XML parser implementation in Enterprise COBOL 5 and 6 has two minor differences in special cases compared to Versions 3 and Version 4, so you should review the special considerations to these rare cases where the differences could occur. For details, see COMPAT XML parser considerations.