Features Added in Enterprise Developer 2.1

Note: There are differences between the two variants of Enterprise Developer you might have installed. Enterprise Developer Personal Edition provides a development environment that supports analysis, editing and syntax checking of COBOL and mainframe programs outside of the mainframe environment. It does not, however, support off-mainframe debugging, unit testing and building of projects. To build, debug, and execute the demonstration application, you need Enterprise Developer Team Edition.

Building to .int, .gnt, and .lbr files

All sources for native COBOL and mainframe subsystem projects can be built to either .int or .gnt files, and optionally bundled into an .lbr file.

Compiler directives

The following new Compiler directives are now available

  • DISPLAY - Defines the default behavior of standard DISPLAY statements.
  • COMP1 - Specifies the behavior of a COMP-1 data item.
  • COMP2 - Specifies the behavior of a COMP-2 data item.
  • RESTRICT-GOTO - Generates a syntax error for GO TO statements that transfer control to outside of the current section.
  • ILSMARTRESTRICT - Limits the generation of properties in ILSMARTLINKAGE classes to non-redefining elementary items.

The following Compiler directives have changed:

  • DATAMAP - Two new parameters allow you to display either the address or offset values for data items in your program.

Debugging Assembler Applications

Now you can use a standalone Assembler debugger which is independent from the IDE to the debug Assembler applications. This enables System administrators to debug Assembler applications as an aid in problem determination when setting up Assembler routines for use in an offload development and test environment.

Enterprise Server

  • This release provides a new Eclipse-based Drag and Drop GUI (mfdasmx2) which replaces the GUI used previously, mfdasmx.exe.
  • CICS External Call Interface (ECI) - Micro Focus proprietary support for ECI is now available. ECI uses the Micro Focus BINP protocol and negates the need for third-party middleware. For more information about ECI support, read the section IBM External Call Interface (ECI) in your product help.
  • Enterprise Server Batch Clustering is now available as a technology preview. Features include:
    • Support for sharing of both the catalog and spool between multiple batch regions is included as a technology preview.
    • Allows multiple batch regions to share commonly configured resources by providing global locking facilities to manage contention.

    For further details about this feature, contact your Micro Focus technical account management team.

  • Micro Focus Batch Scheduler Integration solution - enables you to submit, execute, and feedback between Enterprise Server and a scheduler that controls JCL job execution.
  • Support for running TSO commands in a TSO batch session using the IDAEFT01 (IKJEFF01) utility is now available.
  • The mfds –x export command line option has been extended to support repository export to an XML-format file. The syntax is as follows:
    mfds -x [repository type] [repository address] [server name] <opts> <user id> <password>

    Where:

    [repository type]
    • 1 = file:///
    • 5 = XML
    [server name]
    * = export all servers
    <opts>
    • D = (default) do not delete or overwrite any existing repository contents at specified location
    • O = delete and overwrite any existing repository contents at specified location
    • S = export server and security manager configuration
    <user id> and <password>
    the MFDS credentials required if administration access is restricted
  • The new –g option is used to allow XML format repository import. The syntax is as follows:
    mfds -g [repository type] [repository address] <opts> <user id> <password>
    [repository type]
    5 = XML
    <opts>
    Not currently in use.
  • XML repository import - extends the MFDS repository export to XML and import from XML introduced in Enterprise Developer 2.0 to UNIX platforms. This allows administrators to export, modify and then reimport Enterprise Server instance configuration data in XML format.
  • MFA Server has been updated to version 4.00 (BASE), and provides the following enhancements:
    • Double-byte character support using the following code pages:
      • Traditional Chinese with Taiwanese additions (BIG5)
      • Korean (KSC5601)
      • Simplified Chinese (SCHINESE)
      • Japanese - Kanji (SJISKANJI)
      • Traditional Chinese (TCHINESE)
    • Additional qualifiers for use with the new code pages:
      default
      EBCIDIC SI/SO added on upload, removed on download
      -SOSI-K
      EBCIDIC SI/SO assumed on upload, preserved on download
      -SOSI-A
      ASCII SI/SO assumed on upload, preserved on download
      -SOSI-S
      Spaces converted to SI/SO on upload. SI/SO converted to spaces on download
      Note: This will only work correctly with text that originates on a host.

IMS support

  • Mainframe projects contain categories for IMS resources (.dbd, .mfs, and .psb files), in which files with these extensions are automatically put when you add them to the project. Each file type has its own editor that colorizes tokens to aid development. Building a project containing these file types automatically generates DBD. PSB, and MFS files.
  • Non-discardable message exit (early release) - provides you with functionality present in Mainframe IMS that allows messages destined for an abended IMS application program to be deleted, put on the suspend queue, requeued to the original transaction, or routed to an alternate destination.
  • IMS printer support (early release) - IMS application LU1, LU3 MFS, or LTERM output can now be spooled to printers using TCP/IP protocols. You now have the ability to print IMS output on local or networked printers.
    Note: Print spool API support is not available. Users are responsible for associating printers with a user or a department.

Just-in-time debugging

Eclipse now supports "Just-in-time" debugging: when a run-time error occurs, or an application calls CBL_DEBUGBREAK, Eclipse starts automatically with the debugger attached to the failed process.

JVM auto-runtime

If you are developing a COBOL JVM project, you don't have to choose whether to use the native or pure JVM file handling systems. You can use just one runtime that configures itself for the environment it is executing in.

Managed code enhancements

Delegates and Events
Delegates and events are now implemented on the JVM platform.

This release provides support for combining delegates, using the METHOD keyword to specify method groups, and implicit conversion from a method group or an anonymous method to the suitable delegate type.

Handling Invalid Numeric Data
The handling of invalid numeric data is controlled by a number of Compiler directives: HOSTNUMMOVE, HOSTNUMCOMPARE and SIGNFIXUP. These directives were previously only available in native code but are now supported in managed code.
Resolving Types
In this release, the Compiler attempts to resolve types to those defined in the current compilation unit wherever possible. The Compiler will attempt to resolve such types to an external name only if no suitable type exists in the current compilation unit. For example:
$set ilusing"System"
class-id MyNamespace.EventHandler.
01 o type EventHandler.                       
end class.

In this release, 01 o type EventHandler. resolves to MyNamespace.EventHandler and not to System.EventHandler.

Specifying Properties
In previous versions of the products, properties declared using the PROPERTY keyword on a data item were generated as final properties. Starting with this release, they are generated as virtual properties by default. In order to make the properties final, you need to specify the word FINAL following PROPERTY. This change may affect the generation of Proxy classes, for example, if you are using WCF.

OpenESQL

JDBC
JDBC has been enhanced to support two new directives:
JNDI
Enables you to specify a JNDI class that looks up connection strings.
JNDIENC
Enables applications to use the JNDI Environment Naming Context (ENC) when looking up JDBC data source names using JNDI.
ODBC
Added support for a generic one-phase commit for ODBC XA switch module.
SQL Compiler Directive Options
OpenESQL has been enhanced to support the the following new SQL compiler directive options:
DATE
Controls the reformatting of date values in output parameters and in input parameter character host variables when DETECTDATE is also specified.
TIME
Controls the reformatting of date values in output parameters and in input parameter character host variables when DETECTDATE is also used.
DATEDELIM
Specifies a single character as the delimiter between the year, month, and day components to override the default delimiter determined by the HCOSS DIALECT or DATE directive specification.
TIMEDELIM
Specifies a single character as the delimiter between the hour, minute, and second components to override the default delimiter determined by the HCOSS DIALECT or TIME directive specification.
TSTAMPSEP
Specifies a single character as the separator between the date and time parts of timestamp and date/time data.
SQL Server
We now support Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

Tutorials

The following tutorial is now available in the Getting Started section in your product help:

Tutorial: Assembler
AACT is a sample CICS 3270 transaction that comprises several Assembler programs and a single BMS map, and uses the resource definitions in the file dfhdrdat. This tutorial walks you through the steps required to implement and test the AACT transaction.
Managing the Mainframe in Eclipse
This tutorial shows you how to develop and debug applications on or off the Mainframe. The tutorial is based on the Bankdemo sample application.

UNIX and Linux platforms support

Micro Focus Enterprise Developer Unix Components enables you connect to remote UNIX machines and use them to create, edit, and debug all project types. The following systems are supported:

  • POWER running AIX 6.1, 6.6, 7.2 - 32/64-bit
  • x86-64 running Red Hat Linux 5.5, 5.8, 6.2, Oracle Linux 6.2 (Red Hat Kernel compatibility mode) - 32/64-bit
  • Oracle Linux 6 Update 2 with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2
  • SPARC running Solaris 10, 11 - 32/64-bit
  • x86-64 running SuSE SLES 11, 11 SP2, Oracle Linux 6.2 (Red Hat Kernel) - 32/64-bit
  • 390 running SuSE SLES 11 SP1 - 32/64-bit
  • Itanium running HP/UX 11.31 - 32/64-bit

Working with Mainframes

The following views are included with Enterprise Developer Personal Edition+ and Team Edition+:

  • Team Developer Tree View gives a developer’s view on the environment on which they are working. The ‘view’ is created by an Administrator using the modelling capability with the product. With the modelling tool, an Administrator can give a developer controlled access to all the platforms that make up his working environment. These can be on the mainframe, local workstation and remote distributed servers. The modelling tool allows a client to represent that Development Environment Workflow within the Eclipse IDE.

  • The Remote System view allows you to view mainframe datasets and spool items based on bespoke filters. All filters respect RACF rules. Shared datasets can have filters are set by users other than yourself. These filters can be used to show that the RACF rules are respected.

  • MVS Explorer
  • MVS Table view
  • JES Explorer