In December of 2002 a standard for a new version of COBOL was ratified, Object COBOL. Before you laugh, listen up! They added syntax to the 40 year old language to create class instances and invoke methods in those classes. This means 2 major things: First: the class instances can be activated as a thread instead of a process and pooled in an application server. Second: Interoperability between other OO languages and COBOL is possible. That is, Java can call COBOL and the COBOL can call Java.
The syntax is a little clunky primarily because the period (".") is already used to mark the end of a sentence in COBOL. So, there is a little redirection. For instance the following syntax might be used to create an object instance and then call the ?GetHelloWorld() method.
INVOKE ABC-CLASS "NEW" RETURNING XYZ.
INVOKE XYZ "GETHELLOWORLD" USING "MYNAME" RETURNING MY-NAME.
Microfocus, Fujitsu and IBM are compilers available for Object COBOL.
Fujitsu
The Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .NET product produces a dll of "managed" classes that run in the Microsoft .NET Framework. The .NET application server installs with Windows 2003 server. The application pooling and scaling is managed from IIS 6 application console. Interoperability between .NET classes and the COBOL follows the Object COBOL standard. Visual Studio 2003 for .NET is the development environment.
Microfocus
Microfocus NetExpress has 2 variations, one for J2EE interop and one for .NET. The NetExpress class declaration syntax breaks from the Object COBOL standard slightly, but is basically straight forward. Microfocus has its own application server to provide interop between a J2EE app server and the COBOL. The Java version IDE is also a Microfocus product. The .NET version is similar to Fujitsu where the IDE is Visual Studio and the app server is .NET.
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