Roadmap

Here is a list of features we would like to be implemented, grouped by milestone.

Version 1.0 - Types and procedures

User features

TypeCobol language

• Type (weaked and strong) - specs comes from Cobol 2002 + Type Strict close to Strong
• Intrinsic type based on Cobol 2002 type:
  • Types Date, bool
• "::" operator which is used as the dot operator in modern language
  • Can't be used with arrays
• Procedures *[X] Shorter syntax to declare a procedure than a sub-program *[x] Control caller arguments during compilation time (partially) * Control only number of arguments and their type *[x] Write clearly which arguments serves as input, output or both *[x] Propose visibility mechanism: only public and private for now

Code generation

• Generate Cobol 85 code from a TypeCobol source file

IDE integration

• Preprocessor integration for RDz
• POC for integration with RTC (https://github.com/TypeCobolTeam/TypeCobolBuild)

Propose a Console Interface

• Parse a Cobol file to check for errors
• Convert a TypeCobol source file to a Cobol 85 file

Technical Considerations

Incremental parsing

Do lexical analysis [?]

• Integrate ANTLR current version: 4.5 since then

Do syntactic analysis [?]

• Write a complete Cobol grammar
• Build ANTLR tokens into into code elements

Do semantic analysis

• Build an abstract syntax tree [?]
• Build a symbol table [?] since then
• Be able to resolve naming errors since then
• Build a representation for Cobol types
• Be able to resolve type errors

Run as a server to be incremental

• Be able to run as a stateful server

Cobol 85

• Full Cobol 85 grammar support (full grammar is written, but we still need to implement semantic checks)

Cobol 2002

• Type grammar (weak and strong) + semantic rules

Multiple layer of (Type)Cobol language

• Write the language grammar (TypeCobol and Cobol 2002) as a superset of Cobol 85 grammar
• Extend the Cobol 85 AST with Cobol 2002 and TypeCobol CodeElements

Version 1.1 - Types, procedures/functions, error code (Release for 2017/2018)

User features

TypeCobol language

• Full support for operator "::"
  • Operator ":::"
• Functions support
• Basic support for error code in function and procedures (implicit parameter)
  • Check if caller test error code
• Procedures and functions enhancement
  • Control caller arguments during compilation time (Full support)
  • Propose visibility mechanism (Full support)

Version 1.2 - Types, procedures/functions, error code and namespaces (Release for 2018)

User features

TypeCobol language

• Namespaces
  • Namespaces support for types, functions and procedures

Milestone X (planned for ..when it's done) - TypeCobolEditor for Eclipse

Incremental parsing

Do semantic analysis

• Implement COBOL semantic errors for most common statements
• Implement 100% of COBOL semantic errors

Run as a server to be incremental

• Optimize data serialization
• Define an interface for the server allowing to support all features of a modern IDE

Code generation

• Generate Cobol 2002 code from a TypeCobol AST
• Make the generated code RCS friendly
• Make the generated code Cobol debugging friendly

IDE integration

• TypeCobolEditor for Eclipse
• vscode implementation