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COBOL Source colouriser for Visual Studio Code

Version Installs Downloads Rating chat-img

What is this?

Syntax highlighting for COBOL, JCL, PL/I and MF directive files.

What is this not?

An Integrated Development Environment for COBOL.

What is it useful for?

Quick viewing of COBOL source and edit.

What platform can it be used on?

Everywhere Visual Studio Code works.. aka Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Code colourisation for COBOL, PL/I and JCL:

sieve_jcl

IntelliSense example:

perform_add

Breadcrumb support:

breadcrumbs

Outline support:

outline

Goto definition:

gotodef

Peek definition:

peekdef

Keybinds

Keys Description
ctrl+alt+p Goto procedure division
ctrl+alt+w Goto working-storage section
ctrl+alt+d Goto data division (or working-storage section if not present)
ctrl+alt+, Go backwards to next section/division
ctrl+alt+. Go forward to next next section/division
f12 or ctrl+click Move to copybook/file
ctrl+hover over copybook Peek head of copybook
right mouse/peek Peek copybook without opening the file)

Settings

  • COBOL tab stops can be changed by editing the coboleditor.tabstops setting.
  • Extensions used for move to copybook, can be changed by editting the coboleditor.copybookexts settings.
  • Directories used for move to copybook, can be changed by editting the coboleditor.copybookdirs settings.

Tasks

Visual Studio code can be setup to build your COBOL source code.

Task: Using MsBuild

MsBuild based projects can be consumed as build task, allowing navigation to error/warnings when they occur.

Below is an example of build task that uses mycobolproject.sln.

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [ {
            "label": "build",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "msbuild",
            "args": [
                "/property:GenerateFullPaths=true",
                "/t:build",
                "mycobolproject.sln"
            ],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "presentation": {
                "reveal": "always"
            },
            "problemMatcher": "$mfcobol-msbuild"
        }
    ]
}

Task: Single file compile using Micro Focus COBOL - ERRFORMAT(3)

The example below shows you how you can create a single task to compile one program using the cobol command.

{
    "label": "mf cobol (single file)",
    "command": "cobol",
    "args": [
        "${file}",
        "noint",
        "nognt",
        "noobj",
        "noquery",
        "errformat(3)",
        "COPYPATH($COBCPY;${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks;${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks\\Public)",
        ";"
    ],
    "group": {
        "kind": "build",
        "isDefault": true
    },
    "options": {
        "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}"
    },
    "presentation": {
        "echo": true,
        "reveal": "never",
        "focus": true,
        "panel": "dedicated"
    },
    "problemMatcher": "$mfcobol-errformat3"
}

Task: Single file compile using Micro Focus COBOL - ERRFORMAT(2)

The example below shows you how you can create a single task to compile one program using the cobol command.

{
    "label": "mf cobol (single file)",
    "command": "cobol",
    "args": [
        "${file}",
        "noint",
        "nognt",
        "noobj",
        "noquery",
        "errformat(2)",
        "COPYPATH($COBCPY;${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks;${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks\\Public)",
        ";"
    ],
    "group": {
        "kind": "build",
        "isDefault": true
    },
    "options": {
        "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}"
    },
    "presentation": {
        "echo": true,
        "reveal": "never",
        "focus": true,
        "panel": "dedicated"
    },
    "problemMatcher": "$mfcobol-errformat2"
}

Task: Single file compile using GnuCOBOL/OpenCOBOL/COBOL-IT

The example below shows you how you can create a single task to compile one program using the cobc command.

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "gnucobol - cobc (single file)",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "cobc",
            "args": [
                "-fsyntax-only",
                "-I${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks",
                "-I${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks\\Public",
                "${file}"
            ],
            "problemMatcher" : "$gnucobol-cobc"
        }
    ]
}

Task: Single file compile using ACUCOBOL-GT

The example below shows you how you can create a single task to compile one program using the ccbl32 command.

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "acu cobol - ccbl32 (single file)",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "%ACUCOBOL%\\bin\\ccbl32",
            "args": [
                "-Sp", "${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks",
                "-Sp", "${workspaceFolder}\\CopyBooks\\Public",
                "${file}"
            ],
            "windows": {
                "options": {
                    "env": {
                        "ACUCOBOL" : "C:\\extend10.1.1\\AcuGT"
                    }
                }
            },
            "problemMatcher" : "$acucobol-ccbl"           
        }
    ]
}

Complementary extensions

ToDo tree by Gruntfuggly

Although this extension does not understand comments in COBOL source files, it can be made to by adding the following user setting:

{
    "todo-tree.flat": false,
    "todo-tree.expanded": true,

    "todo-tree.regex": "((//|#|<!--|;|/\\*|\\*>|^......\\*)\\s*($TAGS)|^\\s*- \\[ \\])",
    "todo-tree.tags": [
        "TODO",
        "FIXME",
        "!FIXME",
        "CHANGED",
        "BUG",
        "NOTE"
    ],
    "todo-tree.filterCaseSensitive": true,
    
    "todo-tree.iconColours": {
        "FIXME" : "#A188FF",
        "!FIXME" : "red",
        "NOTE" : "blue",
        "TODO" : "cyan",
        "CHANGED" : "yellow",
        "BUG" : "red"
    }
}

Organize workspace

Grouping files by prefix

alt

Fixing files extenssions

alt

coboleditor.fileformat

When coboleditor.margin is enabled extension will look for "sourceformat" settings in the header of the source file itself.

However, if you need to tell the extension which file are which particular format, this can be achieved with coboleditor.fileformat property.

For example, if you want all the files that match A*.cbl to be fixed and every other *.cbl is free format, you can then use:

    "coboleditor.fileformat": [
        {
            "pattern": "**/A*.cbl",
            "sourceformat": "fixed"
        },
        {
            "pattern": "**/*.cbl",
            "sourceformat": "free"
        }
    ],

Handling code pages

The defaults embedded in the extension can be overwritten by either changing sessions at the user level in the settings json or more efficiently, you change it just for the "COBOL" files.

For example, to ensure you use utf8 for all you files use:

{
    "[COBOL]": {
        "files.encoding": "utf8",
        "files.autoGuessEncoding": false
    }
}

coboleditor.experimential_features

Currently I have only one is active experimential feature and this is "hover" support for known APIs.

This currently includes most of the Micro Focus COBOL Library API (CBL_) and a subset of ILE date apis.

This can be activated by setting the flag coboleditor.experimential_features in the settings panel.

and looks like:

hover

Online resources

Shortcuts

  • [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [C]: Change to COBOL Syntax (default)
  • [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [A]: Change to ACUCOBOL-GT Syntax
  • [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [O]: Change to OpenCOBOL Syntax
  • [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [G]: Change to GnuCOBOL Syntax
  • [ALT] + [SHIFT] + [M]: Toggle margins (overrides user/workspace settings)

Contributors

I would like to thank the follow contributors for providing patches, fixes, kind words of wisdom and enhancements.

  • Ted John of Berkshire, UK
  • Kevin Abel of Lincoln, NE, USA
  • Simon Sobisch of Germany