What's New in V5R1?

National data, a new type of data item, has been added to provide support for the coded character set specified in ISO/IEC 10646-1 as UCS-2. The code set is the basic set defined in the Unicode standard.

• UCS-2 character set

  This coded character set provides a unique code for each character appearing in the principal scripts in use around the world. Each character is represented by a 16-bit (2-byte) code.

• National data

  This new type of data item specifies that the item contains data coded using the UCS-2 code set. An elementary data item whose description contains a USAGE NATIONAL clause, or an elementary data item subordinate to a group item whose description contains a USAGE NATIONAL clause, is a national data item.

• NTLPADCHAR compiler option and PROCESS statement option

  This option allows you to specify three values: the SBCS padding character, DBCS padding character, and national padding character. The appropriate padding character is used when a value is moved into a national datatype item and does not fill the national datatype item completely.

• ALL national literal

  Allows the word ALL wherever a national hexadecimal literal is allowed, so that for example you could move all UCS-2 blanks into a national data item.

• PROCESS statement option NATIONAL

  When this option is specified, elementary data items defined using the picture symbol N will have an implied USAGE NATIONAL clause. A USAGE DISPLAY-1 clause will be implied for these items if the compiler option is not used.

• National hexadecimal literals
  Literals containing national data values may be specified using the syntax:

  NX"hexadecimal-character-sequence..."

• Figurative constants

  The figurative constant SPACE/SPACES represents one or more UCS-2 single byte space characters (U+0020) when used with national data items.

• QCBLLESRC.JNI file

  This file provides the same definitions and prototypes that are provided in the JNI.h file, but written in COBOL rather than C.

• Data mapping between Java™ and COBOL datatypes

• NOCOMPASBIN/COMPASBIN PROCESS statement option indicates whether USAGE COMPUTATIONAL or COMP has the same meaning as USAGE COMP-3 or USAGE COMP-4.
• NOLSPTRALIGN/LSPTRALIGN PROCESS statement option indicates whether data items with USAGE POINTER or PROCEDURE-POINTER are aligned at multiples of 16 bytes relative to the beginning of the record in the linkage section.
• Complex OCCURS DEPENDING ON (ODO) support
  The following constitute complex ODO:

  • Entries subordinate to the subject of an OCCURS or an ODO clause can contain ODO clauses (table with variable length elements).
  • A data item described by an ODO can be followed by a non-subordinate data item described with ODO clause (variably located table).
  • Entries containing an ODO clause can be followed by non-subordinate items (variably located fields). These non-subordinate items, however, cannot be the object of an ODO clause.
  • The location of any subordinate or non-subordinate item, following an item containing an ODO clause, is affected by the value of the ODO object.
  • The INDEXED BY phrase can be specified for a table that has a subordinate item that contains an ODO clause.