IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

A productive, flexible and cost-effective development solution for building and modernizing COBOL applications for Linux on x86

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Overview

IBM COBOL for Linux® on x86 is a productive and powerful development environment for building and modernizing COBOL applications. It includes an optimizing COBOL compiler, a COBOL runtime library, and a debugger that lets you visually debug programs from your workstation.

COBOL for Linux on x86 is also designed to support your journey to a Linux on x86 or hybrid cloud environment. Strategically deploy business-critical applications written in COBOL to a hybrid cloud environment or best-fit platforms that include IBM Z® (IBM z/OS®), IBM Power® systems (AIX®), and x86 (Linux) platforms.

 Upgrade to the current version of COBOL for Linux on x86 IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 overview
Deploy COBOL applications to hybrid cloud

Allows COBOL/CICS applications to share critical data and logic seamlessly across z/OS, AIX, Linux on x86, and Cloud.
Develop COBOL programs with CICS and Db2

Interoperates with IBM TXSeries® for Multiplatforms, IBM CICS TX, and IBM Db2® Advanced Enterprise Server Edition for Linux, UNIX® and Windows™ for the Linux on x86 environment.
Improve developer productivity

Includes IBM Debug for Linux on x86 to support debugging of COBOL and CICS applications. This makes your development work more efficient.

Features

64-bit application development capability

COBOL for Linux can now run on 64-bit Linux distros. This provides access to a larger address space for code and application data, more efficient use of memory layout, and improved performance.
Incremental builds

Incremental build support is provided through the -M compiler option. It improves developer productivity by allowing you to do iterative, incremental builds, while also ensuring that programs are built with the latest version of any copybooks that you use.
Support for MongoDB as a VSAM data store

As a document database used to build highly available and scalable internet applications, MongoDB makes it easy for you to store structured or unstructured data. Support for MongoDB as a VSAM data store is provided by specifying a file system type of MONGO in COBOL applications.
CICS and Db2 support

Interoperates with IBM TXSeries for Multiplatforms, IBM CICS TX, and IBM Db2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows to support the development of COBOL programs to run in a CICS or Db2 environment.
Unicode support

Supports developing COBOL programs that work with various national languages and directly processing Unicode data.
Native support for XML

Allows COBOL applications to parse and generate XML documents.
Source conversion utility

The source conversion utility (scu) is a stand-alone Linux® program that aids in migrating COBOL applications developed with non-IBM COBOL compilers to COBOL for Linux on x86.
Compatibility with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS and AIX

Provides compiler options and COBOL language features that are compatible with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS and AIX to allow strategic deployment of business-critical applications written in COBOL to best-fit platforms or a hybrid cloud environment.

File system support

Provides comprehensive file system support to work with record-oriented files that have sequential, relative, indexed, or line-sequential organization.
Generation data groups (GDGs) simulation

A generation data group (GDG) is a chronological collection of related files. This feature simulates generation data groups (GDGs) to simplify the processing of multiple versions of related data and provide better compatibility with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS.
Communication between COBOL and C/C++

Supports inter-language communication between COBOL and C/C++. You can call functions written in C/C++ from COBOL programs and can call COBOL programs from C/C++ functions.
An extended source format

Offers an extended source format that lets source text vary in length up to 252 bytes per line.
Compare editions


Compare the features of the offerings for IBM COBOL for Linux on x86.
Editions No-charge 60-day trial

A no-charge trial for non-production use for 60 days. 

 Try it free COBOL for Linux on x86

For on-premises deployments of COBOL applications.

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Purpose

Evaluation

Development and deployment

Charge metric

No charge

VPC with a perpetual license

Target platform to deploy applications

On-premises

On-premises

Online transactions

Includes COBOL compiler

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Technical details

Supported platforms


Use any of the following operating systems on compatible x86-64 servers to run COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 and its generated object programs:

  • Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.5 or later (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.0 or later (64-bit only)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP3 or later (64-bit only)
  • Ubuntu Server (Ubuntu) 20.04 LTS or 22.04 LTS (32-bit and 64-bit)

Hardware requirements

COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 and its generated object programs run on any x86-64 processor that is supported by your operating system distribution. There are other requirements we recommended you follow.

Software requirements

For the required programs, determine which GNU package is required to run the compiler on your operating system. To use COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 with optional programs such as Db2®, CICS®, and MongoDB, additional products are required.
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Explore IBM COBOL for Linux on x86. Download through Passport Advantage or schedule a no-cost 30-minute meeting with an IBM Z representative.

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