Different versions of Cobol 2

[jamiek]

Hi,

I feel like an absolute idiot but can't seem to find an answer to this question anywhere. Everywhere I go there seems to be several names for the newer different versions of Cobol that are out there. Can anyone tell me which are actual versions and which are just other names for the same version?? What I have found so far are:
Cobol 370
Cobol for MVS
Cobol for OS390
Cobol 390
Cobol LE

I would really appreciate some help here.....Thanks!!!!

 

[Crox]

Hi,

COBOL 370 is a compiler that runs also on MVS but also on some other mainframe operating systems.

COBOL 390 is e newer version of 370. It works also on MVS.

LE means language environment. All the programming languagues from IBM work with LE. LE is a set of runtime routines and extra programs you can use in your own programs.

So if you work with the latest version of IBM mainframe COBOL on MVS, it will be COBOL 390. The current release is 2.2 if I am good informed. This you can also find on the IBM site. Some of the newer features are: COMP-5 native binairy format and 31 digits in numeric pictures.

You can find many manuals at the IBM's site.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[RonaldB]

jamiek,

COBOL language versions are usually marked by the version of the COBOL standard. How compiler manufacturer versions relate to this depends on how close they stick to the standard. At my site we recently introduced COBOL/390 and i'm told this implements most of the features of the COBOL-85 standard, with IBM-specific additions and a number of features from the new COBOL-2000 standard, like object orientation (is this standard already finished, by the way ?)

Other than that, Crox said it all !

Good luck !