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GNAT Programming Studio for OpenCOBOL development

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bti...@canada.com

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Jun 4, 2009, 7:44:14 PM6/4/09
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Hello,

I've been involved with the OpenCOBOL project for a little while now
and the developer community is looking for a good IDE. I've done some
preliminary customizations as a plug-ins XML file; a compiler switches
screen, some keywords for the editor highlights, a menu for running
various compiles etc...

Who should I direct questions to?

Ok, in reality I'd like to team up OpenCOBOL with the GNAT developers
and get these two wonderful open systems more tightly integrated.
OpenCOBOL is quite complete and fairly robust as-is but I'm thinking a
few more pushes and OpenCOBOL and GPS could be a good fit. And if a
few COBOL programmers get exposed to Ada, or Ada programmers exposed
to COBOL, well, the more the better.

As the keeper of the OpenCOBOL FAQ, pertinent information of what has
been done so far can be seen at
http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-the-gnat-programming-studio-be-used-with-opencobol
and http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-opencobol-interface-with-ada

For the curious, OpenCOBOL emits intermediate C and links nicely with
GNAT when using gnatgcc and gnatbind -n

Excuse the interruption and thanks for GPS and GNAT.
Cheers,
Brian

Georg Bauhaus

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Jun 5, 2009, 5:11:32 AM6/5/09
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bti...@canada.com schrieb:

> and http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-opencobol-interface-with-ada
>
> For the curious, OpenCOBOL emits intermediate C and links nicely with
> GNAT when using gnatgcc and gnatbind -n

I am curious about a minor thing; it's that OpenCOBOL does not (yet?)
refer to Ada LRM B.4, "Interfacing with COBOL". Nothing wrong with
the C bridge, just wondering.

Ludovic Brenta

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Jun 5, 2009, 5:13:05 AM6/5/09
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Brian Tiffin wrote on comp.lang.ada:

> I've been involved with the OpenCOBOL project for a little while now
> and the developer community is looking for a good IDE.  I've done some
> preliminary customizations as a plug-ins XML file; a compiler switches
> screen, some keywords for the editor highlights, a menu for running
> various compiles etc...
>
> Who should I direct questions to?

http://lists.adacore.com/mailman/listinfo/gps-devel

Their Subversion repository contains a public, read-only part[1]. You
can submit patches to the above mailing list and watch as they merge
them into the next version of GPS. I mirror this in Ada-France's
monotone database[2,3] and I have added tags to identify the release
branch points. If you're a fan of distributed version control systems,
you might want to use that to create and manage your patches.

[1] http://libre.adacore.com/viewvc/trunk/gps
[2] http://green.ada-france.org:8081/branch/changes/com.adacore.gps
[3] http://www.ada-france.org/article131.html

> Ok, in reality I'd like to team up OpenCOBOL with the GNAT developers
> and get these two wonderful open systems more tightly integrated.
> OpenCOBOL is quite complete and fairly robust as-is but I'm thinking a
> few more pushes and OpenCOBOL and GPS could be a good fit.  And if a
> few COBOL programmers get exposed to Ada, or Ada programmers exposed
> to COBOL, well, the more the better.

I don't think Robert Dewar is listening here on comp.lang.ada but he
might be interested; IIUC, before founding AdaCore, he used to write
COBOL compilers.

> As the keeper of the OpenCOBOL FAQ, pertinent information of what has

> been done so far can be seen athttp://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-the-gnat-programming-studio-be-...
> andhttp://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-opencobol-interface-with-ada


>
> For the curious, OpenCOBOL emits intermediate C and links nicely with
> GNAT when using gnatgcc and gnatbind -n
>
> Excuse the interruption and thanks for GPS and GNAT.

You're most welcome.

--
Ludovic Brenta.

bti...@canada.com

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Jun 5, 2009, 6:46:09 PM6/5/09
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On Jun 5, 5:11 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de>
wrote:
> btif...@canada.com schrieb:
>
> > andhttp://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/#can-opencobol-interface-with-ada

Yeah. ;) As a hobby, writing technically relevant docs takes a
while. We don't even have an OpenCOBOL usage Manual yet, let alone
documentation at the very professional level of Ada and GNAT.
Historically, the COBOL standards are "free to use the underlying
technology" but copyrighted for-fee documents. Not many hobbyists
have said docs, and the free to distribute model just isn't in place
(yet). It is in the plan, but that plan is long term and comes in
volunteer spits and spouts.

Cheers,
Brian

bti...@canada.com

unread,
Jun 5, 2009, 6:52:11 PM6/5/09
to

Awesome info. I just signed up at libre.adacore.com, so the mailing
list will be next. As a volunteer document writer (wannabee) I'm
pretty envious of the level of expertise, support, and professionalism
that the open Ada community enjoys. Well done. I'm hoping OpenCOBOL
and GNAT can see some useful and productive synergy.

Cheers,
Brian

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