Scanning COBOL programs for compatibility
Use the Scan for Compatibility action to scan a set of COBOL programs to determine whether the parameters passed between calling and called programs are compatible.
About this task
The Scan for Compatibility action can detect when a calling program is passing incompatible arguments to a called program. For example, one COBOL program might call another program using a 100-byte argument while the program expects a 200-byte argument.
Limitation: Call statements that reference Dynamic Length Data Items
are not supported by the compatibility scanner.
Procedure
In the z/OS Projects or Remote
Systems view, select a set of COBOL source programs, and
then right-click and select Scan for Compatibility.
The compatibility scanner analyzes all program calls to
determine whether there are duplicate programs of the same name, whether
the number of arguments used in a call is incorrect for any program,
or whether the sizes of arguments are mismatched. For each incompatible
call, a new problem marker is created in the Remote Error
List.
Note: The compatibility scanner supports CALL statements
using literals. When a data item is used in place of a literal in
the CALL statement, the scanner uses static analysis to attempt to
determine a value for the data item. If the data item has a VALUE
clause defining a literal value for the data item or if the data item
is assigned a literal value as part of an unconditional MOVE statement,
the scanner will use that value when performing the compatibility
check. When the scanner detects alternate names assigned via MOVEs
in different branches of a conditional statement, it checks for parameter
mismatches against each of the possible targets.
Results
