What's New in 7.1?
The following list describes the enhancements made to ILE COBOL in 7.1:
- COMPUTATIONAL-5 (native binary) data type
COMPUTATIONAL-5 or COMP-5 is a native binary data type now supported by the USAGE clause. COMP-5 data items are represented in storage as binary data, and can contain values up to the capacity of the native binary representation (2, 4, or 8 bytes). When numeric data is moved or stored into a COMP-5 item, truncation occurs at the binary field size rather than at the COBOL picture size limit. When a COMP-5 item is referenced, the full binary field size is used in the operation. This support will enhance portability to or from COBOL on other IBM® platforms and operating systems.
- Ability to specify a non-numeric literal on the VALUE clause for a national data item.
- XML GENERATE performance improvements and PROCESS options Performance improvements have been made for XML GENERATE when the APPEND option is specified. Users who have a large number of data records to be appended into a data structure or into a stream file will benefit from these changes. The improvements include the addition of new PROCESS statement parameter XMLGEN with option values:
- NOKEEPFILEOPEN / KEEPFILEOPEN
Specify KEEPFILEOPEN to indicate that the XML stream file is to be left open and not closed when the XML GENERATE statement is complete, so that subsequent XML GENERATE FILE-STREAM APPEND statements can quickly append data to the stream file.
- NOASSUMEVALIDCHARS / ASSUMEVALIDCHARS
Specify ASSUMEVALIDCHARS to have XML GENERATE bypass the checking for special characters (less than "<", greater than ">", ampersand "&", and the single and double quote symbols), and for characters not supported by XML that would require being generated as hexadecimal. Otherwise normal checking will be done with the default NOASSUMEVALIDCHARS.
- NOKEEPFILEOPEN / KEEPFILEOPEN
- Ability to encrypt the listing debug view
A new CRTBNDCBL / CRTCBLMOD parameter is added to support the encryption of the listing debug view. DBGENCKEY specifies the encryption key to be used to encrypt program source that is embedded in debug views.
- Larger program support
The CRTBNDCBL / CRTCBLMOD OPTIMIZE parameter now supports a new *NEVER option value. The *NEVER value allows larger programs to compile by not generating optimization code for the program. PROCESS statement option NEVEROPTIMIZE is also added.
- Support for the teraspace storage model The storage model for a program/module can now be specified using the new CRTBNDCBL / CRTCBLMOD parameter STGMDL with option values:
- *SNGLVL specifies that the program/module is to be created with single-level storage model
- *TERASPACE specifies that the program/module is to be created with teraspace storage model
- *INHERIT specifies that the program/module is to inherit the storage model of its caller
Additionally, the activation group parameter ACTGRP on the CRTBNDCBL command now has a new default option value:- *STGMDL: When STGMDL(*TERASPACE) is specified, the program will be activated into the QILETS activation group. For all other storage models, the program will be activated into the QILE activation group when it is called.
- New PROCESS statement options
- ACTGRP is now available as a PROCESS statement parameter with
option values:
- STGMDL
- NEW
- CALLER
- NEVEROPTIMIZE is now available as a PROCESS statement option
- STGMDL is now available as a PROCESS statement parameter with
option values:
- INHERIT
- SNGLVL
- TERASPACE
- XMLGEN is now available as a PROCESS statement parameter with
option values:
- NOKEEPFILEOPEN / KEEPFILEOPEN
- NOASSUMEVALIDCHARS / ASSUMEVALIDCHARS
- ACTGRP is now available as a PROCESS statement parameter with
option values: