A COBOL copybook is a file that contains COBOL data declarations, created when a COBOL program is compiled on the host. A copybook may be included in more than one COBOL program, and a program may include more than one copybook. The names and data types of variables that associated COBOL programs use to exchange information are declared by the copybook in an area of memory called the Program I/O area. Typically, programs that exchange data in this way are compiled with the same copybook file.
Before you can use Task Builder, you'll need to copy the necessary COBOL copybooks from the host to a location you can access from the workstation on which Task Builder is installed, such as a network share.
Copybooks for some programs exist in a separate file; for other programs, the copybook data declarations might be buried within other COBOL statements. In this case, you'll need to extract the copybook into its own file.
To create a task file, Task Builder must know which data fields are for input and which are for output. In a COBOL copybook file, the data declarations themselves do not reveal this information. You will need to know about the program functions to do this. (In the first step of the task-file creation process, you designate copybooks as input or output, or both, in a host program definition.)
Task Builder has some limitations with the COBOL Data Division entries it can handle. For detailed information, refer to the topic COBOL Data Division Entries Supported by Task Builder.
In this version, Task builder does not support the euro symbol (€) within copybooks. (This symbol can occur in the VALUE clause, or in the PIC clause.) To work around this, you can replace the euro symbol with the dollar sign ($) in the copybook. The receiving host application should interpret the dollar sign as the currency it expects.
The following example shows a sample COBOL copybook:
***********************************************
* CUSTOMER RECORD QTXCUS2R
* KEY FOR RECORDS IN VSAM FILE IS CUSTOMER-NAME
***********************************************
O 05 CUSTOMER-RCD.
IO 10 CUSTOMER-NAME.
15 LAST-NAME PIC X(16).
15 FIRST-NAME PIC X(16).
10 CUSTOMER-HOME-ADDRESS.
15 STREET PIC X(30).
15 CITY PIC X(20).
15 STATE PIC X(2).
15 ZIP PIC X(10).
10 CUSTOMER-PHONE-NUMBER PIC X(10).
10 CUSTOMER-CREDIT-LIMIT PIC S9(6)V99.
10 CUSTOMER-ACCT-BALANCE PIC S9(13)V99 COMP-3
OCCURS 2 TIMES.
10 CUSTOMER-INTEREST-RATE COMP-1
OCCURS 2 TIMES.
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Synapta Services Builder for IMS |
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Creating Task Files |
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COBOL Data Division Entries Supported by Task Builder |
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Creating a Host Program Definition |
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Properties of Input and Output Fields |
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