Science makes it known,
Engineering makes it work,
Art makes it beautiful.
Despite the 'common wisdom' that COBOL is a 'dead language', according
to various sources anywhere from 35% to 50% of business
applications are written in COBOL. I would imagine the dollar
value of transactions processed by COBOL programs is relatively
high. So,
there is a need for utilities to manipulate COBOL source files.
COBRENUM is a quick and dirty utility to manipulate COBOL
source files' line sequence numbers (as shown below). It was
written after a 'post-merger downsizing' and before pursuing a
Master's; primarily as an exercise to learn Visual Basic for Windows
and developing Help files. The software (source included for your
amusement as SOURCE.ZIP within COBRENUM.ZIP)
was developed using Visual Basic 2.0 (VBRUN200.DLL is required,
can be downloaded using link below), and the help file
was developed using Microsoft's Help Project Editor 1.10.000,
Windows Help Authoring Toolkit 6.0, and MS Word 6.0c (F.Y.I. - the path for the
WHAT 6.0 template is hard coded within the Help file .rtf source; this part
of the project was simply an exercise to learn Help File Authoring).
Not all COBOL platforms use line sequence numbers. As an example, HP3000 COBOL74 and Fujitsu COBOL use line sequence numbers, but HP3000 COBOL85 may not and OTCOBOL does not. COBRENUM is especially useful when manually migrating COBOL source files from one platform or compiler to another. It can be used with source programs or copybooks. As can be seen in the screen shot below, it uses a very plain, simple user interface and will run on anything from Windows 3.x to Win98SE, and Windows XP. It has not been tested on Windows ME or Windows 2000. Both COBRENUM and its help file will not execute directly on Win 7 (this is a common problem for many pre-Win 7 applications and device drivers). However, it will execute on a VMware Player 6.0.3 running Win98SE guest operating system. Data can be transferred between host and guest operating system using Drag 'n Drop. COBRENUM does not support long file names.
To use COBRENUM, just simply download cobrenum.zip, unzip cobrenum.exe
and cobrenum.hlp into any directory. Use the Windows Run Command
to execute cobrenum.exe. There is not a setup available; since this is an
extremely simple
programmer's utility the user can set it up to run anyway they
prefer. Help is accessible from within COBRENUM by pressing the
F1 key. To remove the program, just simply delete it.
"By downloading this software, I acknowledge that Rodney Roberts is
the copyright
holder. I may freely use, modify, incorporate into a package with
other software, and
distribute this software, for either commercial or private usage,
as long as Rodney Roberts is acknowledged as the original
author and the software is not sold, leased, bartered, etc. at a
profit. Rodney Roberts´ entire
liability for damages to you or any other party
for any cause whatsoever, whether in contract or in tort, including
negligence, shall not exceed making a new copy available".
Download COBRENUM
Download VBRUN200.DLL (zipped)
Unzip this file into your \Windows\System\ or
\Windows\System32\ directory.
