Taming the COBOL Issue

Never worked before on COBOL in PeopleSoft and that was the reason we were stuck when the COBOL bite us when the instance was build. In all good ways that was a wonderful learning.

The COBOL need to be compiled before you can use the processes which executes these COBOL's. For this you need a compiler. You can download MicroSoft Netexpress verisons from Oracle e-Delivery. And you need to check the certified version of the compiler which depends on the OS and the PeopleTools version.

If the COBOLs are not compiled you might get the 'Child program could not start...' error.

The compiler comes in two shapes. With/without license. You can use the trial version of the compiler and it will last only for 30 days and can compile only upto 2000 lines.

What is meant by compiling?

The delivered COBOL files can be found under PS_HOME\src\cbl\base folder. You can see .cbl/.cfg/.dms files in it. Compilation steps/commands you can Google and find it out. It is all over the place.

Once you compile we have to put the compiled .exe/.gnt/.ini files in the CBLBINA/CBLBINU (which depends on the unicode/non-unicode installation).

with the above step the COBOL process should be live and kicking. However you might confront this error - 'Child program XXX aborted'

Why this error is due to the absence of some DLL files from the compiler base folder. They are these: CBLINTS.DLL,CBLRTSS.DLL,CBLVIOS.DLL,COB32API.DLL

Copy these files from the compiler base folder and paste it in the  CBLBINA/CBLBINU along with the executables. Then it should work.

The above steps is for the non-unicode database.

For non-unicode database you need to compile the COBOLS to unicode compatible format using the conversion .bat file Oracle provides.