What's new in IBM z/OS Debugger

Start of change

16.0.4

New support
  • Support is added for IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Go 1.22.
  • LangX COBOL now includes programs compiled with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS® 6.
IBM Z® Open Debug 4.0
  • Zowe Explorer is now the prerequisite. If it was not installed previously, when you install Z Open Debug 4.0, Zowe Explorer is installed automatically.
  • Instead of installing two extensions, now you need to install only one extension: IBM Z Open Debug (zopendebug-<version>.vsix)
  • Connections to the remote z/OS machine are now defined as zOpenDebug connection profiles in the Zowe team configuration file. A connection profile is created automatically based on the values you specified in Settings when you migrate to Z Open Debug 4.0. You can create multiple Zowe connection profiles to switch from one connection to another.
  • The Z Open Debug Profiles view is now renamed as z/OS Debugger Profiles view and integrated into Zowe Explorer. If you installed an earlier version of the extension for IBM Z Open Debug Profiles view and have profiles in that view, when you install Z Open Debug 4.0, the profiles can be automatically migrated and the IBM Z Open Debug Profiles view will be uninstalled.
  • The logging information previously available in the user's home directory is now available in the Output panel. Select IBM Z Open Debug from the list to filter out relevant log.
  • You can no longer get the Debug profile Service URL from the Developer Tools window. Open a browser and visit the URL directly at: {host_name}:{dps_port}/api/v1/profile/dtcn}.
For more information, see Migrating from Z Open Debug v3 to v4, Setting up for IBM Z Open Debug, and Creating and managing debug profiles with Z Open Debug.
Debug Profile Service
  • Debug Profile Service can now be used with Java 17, but IBM z/OS Liberty Embedded 23.0.0.12 or later is required.
Debug Manager
End of change

16.0.3

New support
  • Support is added for z/OS 3.1.
  • Support is added for IMS 15.4.
  • Support is added for CICS Transaction Server for z/OS 6.2 (open beta).
  • Support is added for IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Go 1.21.
Code Coverage
Eclipse debugger
  • When you debug CICS applications, you can now specify QUIT DEBUG or QUIT DEBUG TASK in the z/OS Debugger Preferences page. For more information, see Setting debug preferences.
  • During playback, the Variables view now displays values collected during recording. Variables cannot be updated during replay. For more information, see Using the Playback toolbar.
IMS Transaction Isolation
EQAN0DBG
EQAOPTS command
  • Command LDDAUTOLANGX can now be specified to control whether LDD is automatically run on LangX COBOL compile units. For more information, see LDDAUTOLANGX.
Remote Debug Service
Debug Profile Service
Documentation updates

16.0.2

Compiler support
  • Support is added for IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Go 1.20.
  • Interoperability is now supported between 64-bit Java and 31-bit PL/I programs if you use 64-bit PL/I programs in between. Use delay debug mode to improve efficiency. For more information about delay debug, see Using delay debug mode to delay starting of a debug session.
IBM Z Open Debug
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code - Open Source is now the default browser-based IDE in Wazi for Dev Spaces. Support for Eclipse Theia has been deprecated as an IDE choice in Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces and will be removed in a future release.
IMS Transaction Isolation
Property group
Debug Profile Service
In addition to an SSL or a CA certificate, you can now enable Debug Profile Service to communicate with AT-TLS. For more information, see Enabling secure communication with AT-TLS.

16.0.1

Installation Manager
Compiler support
  • Support is added for IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Go 1.19.
  • Support is added for 31-bit PL/I applications compiled with TEST(SOURCE).
    The following APARs are required for this support:
    • z/OS Language Environment® APAR PH49423
    • Enterprise PL/I for z/OS 6.1 APAR PH50085
Code Coverage
  • The multiple import menu actions and buttons in the Code Coverage Results view are now consolidated into a single menu action and button to import code coverage results. With the new Code Coverage Import wizard, you can select the following result formats to import into any result location in the Code Coverage Results view:
    • CCZIP: Import coverage results with a file extension of .cczip, which are produced by headless code coverage collection or via the Eclipse UI. Older formats ending with .clcoveragedata, .ccresult, or .zip are also supported with this option.
    • JaCoCo: Import coverage results data execution files with a file extension of .exec, which are produced by JaCoCo.
    • z/OS Debugger: Import coverage information that is stored in a sequential data set, which is produced in z/OS Debugger using CC or DCC in the TEST runtime option via MFI.
    • Java Code Coverage: Import legacy Java code coverage results with a file extension of .coveragedata. This option is available only in IBM Developer for z/OS and IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition.
    All files are converted to the .cczip format during import.
  • With Code Coverage Service, you can now download exporter formats PDF, SonarQube, and Cobertura, in addition to CCZIP. For more information, see Code Coverage Service API Documentation.
  • The summary section in the code coverage reports now provides more useful statistics and improved usability.
  • You can now customize the colors that are used to indicate the threshold statuses (failure, warning, passed) for code coverage results in the code coverage reports.
z/OS Debugger Profiles view
  • In the Debug Profile Editor, the CICS user ID field is now pre-populated with the reserved keyword &USERID, which is substituted with the currently logged-in user ID upon profile activation.
  • On the IBM z/OS Debugger Preferences page, you can now choose whether to automatically synchronize debug profiles in the view with those in the remote system when you establish an RSE connection. For more information, see Setting debug preferences.
Debug Manager
  • Debug Manager can now establish communication between the client and the debugger when the LPAR the client is connect to and the LPAR that the debug session is started are different. The sysplex support requires Eclipse IDE 16.0.1 or later. For more information, see Enabling sysplex support.
  • You can now use a configuration file to start Debug Manager. With a configuration file, you can start Debug Manager even when the length of command line with all necessary options exceeds 100 characters limit, for example, in the sysplex environment. For more information, see Running Debug Manager as a started task using a configuration file.

16.0.0

Compiler support
  • Support is added for IBM Open XL C/C++ for z/OS 1.1. z/OS Language Environment APAR PH46617 is required for this support.
  • Support is added for IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Go 1.18.
  • Interoperability is now supported between 31-bit and 64-bit PL/I programs. Use delay debug mode to improve efficiency. For more information about delay debug, see Using delay debug mode to delay starting of a debug session.
    The following APARs are required for this support:
    • z/OS Language Environment APARs PH48829 and PH48239
    • Enterprise PL/I for z/OS 6.1 APAR PH49506
64-bit support
  • With the removal of standard mode, 64-bit PL/I programs are now supported in Debug Tool compatibility mode with some limitations. For the limitations, see Limitations of 64-bit support in remote debug mode.
    The following APARs are required for this support:
    • z/OS Language Environment APARs PH48829 and PH48239
    • Enterprise PL/I for z/OS 6.1 APAR PH49506
    • Enterprise PL/I for z/OS 5.3 APAR PH49425
Code Coverage
Source level debug
  • If you debug programs compiled with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Version 6 Release 2 and later, you can now specify compiler option TEST(NOSOURCE) to use the Source view as the default in the Eclipse IDE, or you can switch to the Source view during the debug session if you compile with TEST(SOURCE). With TEST(NOSOURCE), the compiler does not include the source of your program as part of your debug data whether the location of the debug data is in the load module or in the SYSDEBUG file. For more information, see Working with different debug views.
IMS Transaction Isolation
Debug Profile Service
  • On the IBM z/OS Debugger Preferences page, you can specify to ignore the SSL certificate errors when the Debug Profile Service that you want to connect to does not have a valid SSL certificate. For more information, see Setting debug preferences.
  • As a system programmer, you can now set up Debug Profile Service to use external CICS interface (EXCI) to manage debug profiles stored in the region’s repository instead of using the DTCN API. For more information, see Defining the CICS EXCI CONNECTION and SESSIONS resources.
Property group
  • You can associate property groups to avoid parsing errors in the language editors and ensure that visual debug can work properly. The property group can now be added or changed during a debug session, if you use a z/OS Batch Application using existing JCL or z/OS Unix Application launch configuration. For more information, see Associating property groups with debug sessions.
EQAOPTS command