Group items and data items

Group items in a COBOL copybook map to Java™ classes. Data items map to different Java structures, depending on the level of the data item and the level at which they are defined.

For example, top-level COBOL data items are handled differently from lower-level data items, and Level 88 data items are handled differently, depending on the level at which they are defined in the copybook.

Important: Level 66 and Level 77 data items do not map to Java, so you must exclude them from any copybook that you use to generate a XOM.

Group items

Each group item in the COBOL copybook maps to a Java class in the XOM. If the group item has a parent in the COBOL copybook, an attribute is added into the parent XOM class. For example, you might have these group items:

01 Parent.
   05 Child.

These group items map to the following Java XOM entries:

  • Two classes are generated: Parent and Child

  • The Parent class has one attribute that is named Child, of type Child.

Data items

Data items that have a parent in a COBOL copybook are mapped to an attribute in the parent Java class in the XOM. For example, you might have a data item named Child:

01 Parent.
   05 Child PIC X(20).

This data item maps to the following Java XOM entries:

  • One class is created for the group item: Parent.

  • The data item maps to the Child attribute, which is added to the Parent class with an attribute type of java.lang.String.