What's New in V5R2?

The following list describes the enhancements made to ILE COBOL in V5R2:
  • Recursive program support

    An optional RECURSIVE clause has been added to provide support for recursive programs. These are COBOL programs that can be recursively re-entered.

  • Local Storage Section support

    A new data section that defines storage allocated and freed on a per-invocation basis has been added. You can specify the Local-Storage Section in both recursive and non-recursive programs.

  • Java™ interoperability
    Two new features have been added to enhance Java interoperability. These include:
    • UTF8String intrinsic function

      This function provides the ability to convert strings to UTF-8 format.

    • PCML support

      New parameters have been added to the CRTCBLMOD and CRTBNDCBL commands to give users the ability to tell the compiler to generate PCML source for their COBOL program. When the user specifies PGMINFO(*PCML) and the name of a streamfile on the INFOSTMF parameter, the compiler will generate PCML into the specifed streamfile. The generated PCML makes it easier for Java programs to call this COBOL program, with less Java code.

  • Additional intrinsic functions
    Several new intrinsic functions have been added to this release. These include:
    • Max
    • Median
    • Midrange
    • Min
    • ORD-Max
    • ORD-Min
    • Present Value
    • Range
    • Standard Deviation
    • Sum
    • Variance
  • IFS

    ILE Cobol source stored in IFS stream files can be compiled. The SRCSTMF and INCDIR parameters have been added to the CRTCBLMOD and CRTBNDCBL commands to give users the ability to tell the compiler to compile from source stored in IFS stream files.