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COBOL Source Porting Utility
The Porting Utility is used to aid in the process
of migrating applications written in one version of COBOL to another.
For example if you wish to take an application written in Data General
AOS/VS COBOL or HP COBOL and convert it to ACUCOBOL-GT® this product
offers a viable solution.
The utility is basically a text editor that is
executed and processes edits based on instructions that are defined
in a command file. It provides for a variety of Search conditions
for deleting, inserting and replacing strings or paragraphs of text.
It also provides special commands to deal with standardizing File
Select and FD statements, addressing syntax differences, removing
screen display control characters and converting source to ANSI
or Terminal format. The utility may also be used to insert, remove
or rename COPY statements, replace paragraph calls with program
calls, change the name of variables or make any type of text string
or line edits. The utility also identifies all report printing commands
and can be used to replace them with designated PERFORM commands.
(Thus allowing you to standardize all printing to a common subroutine).
The utility is written in ACUCOBOL-GT® and is available as source.
The process of porting an application is a learning
curve, for both the programmer and the program. Initially you would
devise an Edit Command Script to address all known issues. As you
attempt to compile the resulting program, if new problems are discovered,
you would then add more edit commands as required. Once the first
program is converted, then the next program would be scanned and
ported. Eventually all porting issues would be addressed, you would
be able to execute the utility on the remaining programs without
requiring changes, and your application would be ready for ACUCOBOL-GT®.
Key Benefits
- Retain past investments made in developing your own applications
- Save man-power costs by eliminating the need to perform manually
edits of source files
- Reduce the time required to develop or migrate applications
from one version of COBOL to another
- Make use of newer technology by porting to ACUCOBOL-GT®
- Introduce generic printing, or other logic, by replacing in
line code with subroutine CALLS, PERFORM statements and COPY statements
- The Porting utility can be customized to address special conversion
issues
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