Big thank you to all involved in the OpenCobol Project.

Our accounts, stock control and SOP system has completed its first month-end using OpenCobol.

We ported programs from MicroFocus Cobol to OpenCobol 1.1. We are using Redhat 64-bit LINUX. (I'll add version specifics later.) We use our own in-house B-Tree Isam and our own screen handling. Additionally, all mundane reporting is via our own (coded in C) report handler. The package comprises 1000 (approx) COBOL sources; 383,000 COBOL source lines total.

During the project, we tripped over a number of "curiosities" in OpenCobol. For example, we had to modify the compiler to by-pass some optimisation to numeric handling that produced erroneous results whereas the "long" route produced correct results. We also modified the compiler to support split-keys. The hack was slanted towards our own ISAM handler but I believe it would work with VBISAM and could be tweaked for Berkeley DB.

I would like to now establish a reference installation of OpenCobol and contribute back to the project. So here's the first question I have: should I download the OpenCobol 1.1 pre-release from this site? If I then retest the anomalies and submit the results here (in this forum), will that be useful? I want to avoid wasting everyone's time by submitting bug reports against superseded versions of OpenCobol.

Finally, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'd like to take a look at fileio.c. Is the version in the download package pretty much the "current" version or are significant changes already in the pipeline? Is there a suite of test COBOL sources that you use to acceptance test changes to the OpenCobol compiler?

Advice on this will be gratefully received. And thanks again OpenCobol!

Wondrous news Joe.

We have started a Community Edition project on SourceForge. A copy of the 1.1pre-rel is the 'base' checkin. http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/

I'd like to keep human in charge of the keys to write permissions on the repository (SVN) but it is there and ready to be forked and worked on.

Yes there are test-suites, both $ make check auto-tests and the NIST suite (documented at http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#does-opencobol-pass-the-nist-test-suite and in the compiler source tree at tests/cobol85/README I'd like to see more auto-tests written by the community, and details on that are hinted at at http://www.opencobol.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1378&forum=1#forumpost7052

As to the future, there are superseding sources, but those are under wrap with no current release dates. It was due to the lack of release date that the 1.1CE was initiated. My preference is to continue with Community Edition changes to 1.1pre-rel and worry about back-porting changes into 2.0 when it officially rolls.

Your changes sound very much like a boon to all, and I'd be eager to see them on SourceForge for others to try out.

Drop a PM to human, and I'm sure he'll hand over credentials for svn co https://open-cobol.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/open-cobol open-cobol

Wondrous and awesome news.

Cheers,
Brian

@JoeRobbins
I'm really interested in your work.
If you need testing, let me know how to get package.
Cheers,
Marcello

Sounds great, specially the split keys as I think there are a few people looking at it, me being one. If you have split keys working then maybe we could look at it and do the necessary changes for VB and BDB. I am interested to see what other amendments you made as I am busy converting my system to OC from MF (which I have made open source)and your changes may be a time saving for any of us that are doing these conversions.

Look forward to your contributions!