About dscobol

This site and the GitHub repositories were created because I wanted to learn how to write COBOL programs with embedded SQL Statements accessing an IBM DB2 LUW RDBMS using the GnuCOBOL compiler in a Gnu/Linux environment.

According to the documentation, IBM DB2 LUW can run on Ubuntu.

I like the Pop!_OS UI better then Ubuntu and it is based on Ubuntu so... why not.

I created a Virtual Machine with Pop!_OS and off I went.

That was a success and I was spending alot of time in the VM and I kind of grew to like Pop!_OS.

So, the documentation and guides in this site are ALL for running apps and programs on Pop!_OS.

Most of it will also apply to Ubuntu but "use at your discretion".

What are these repositories, and why are they named the way they are.

What is here

Within the repositories:

  • COBOL is the primary programming language

For programs that run on Gnu/Linux:

  • Bash is the primary scripting language

Note: While all these programs have been run using a Pop!_OS VM, GnuCOBOL is not limited to that OS. Using an OS with an Ubuntu base was needed to run IBM DB2 LUW on a Gnu/Linux OS. See the GnuCOBOL site for more information about it's capabilities.

For programs that run on ZOS or MVS:

  • JCL is the, well, Job Control Language

For Zowe:

  • It is a combination of bash scripts and JCL.

Naming Convention

The ideas or concepts for the programs may have originated somewhere else(books, tutorials, other websites, etc.) but I try to "make it my own" by rewriting it using a different structure and style.

First designation

  • dsc - The code was written by dscobol(aka: me)
  • ibm - Code from books, documentation or instruction from IBM.
  • gem - Curtis Garvin, Steve Eckols. DB2 for the COBOL Programmer, Part 1 and 2. Murach 1991.
  • mca - Michael Coughlan. Beginning COBOL for Programmers Apress 2014.
  • xxx - Code from a website, blog or other source. This will be changed to reflect the source.

Second designation

  • gnu - GnuCOBOL
  • zos - IBM Enterprise COBOL
  • mvs - MVS COBOL
  • zow - Zowe Framework

Third and further designation

A description of the focus of the programs.

Examples:

dsc-gnu-Indexed

  • dsc - programs by dscobol.
  • gnu - uses the GnuCOBOL compiler
  • Indexed - programs that read and write to Indexed files.

gem-gnu-DB2

  • gem - programs from the "DB2 for the COBOL Programmer" book
  • gnu - uses the GnuCOBOL compiler
  • DB2 - connects to the IBM DB2 RDBMS