Announcement

Avaliable on the web October 2013

Filix is pleased to announce, for general release, a new development tool for users of Micro Focus COBOL.  Filix's "COBOL Dictionary for .NET" allows the user to analyse complete COBOL subsystems, examining data and program usage.  It is an ideal tool for change impact analysis where the analyst must "mine" for entities involved in the change of data or functionality, drastically reducing the analysis phase of development projects.  As a maintenance tool, the COBOL Dictionary is invaluable: the analyst-programmer can quickly zoom in to the entity in error through following a path from the error itself through the programs that may pass relevant data items to the point where it is modified. The tool allows users that may not be familiar with the COBOL sub system to be very productive in a much shorter timescale.

This product is operates on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 as well as all Windows Server platforms. The product works with all releases of Enterprise Developer as well as Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.0 and later versions.

The help documentation is available for the COBOL Dictionary here.

An evaluation version of the product is available for download here. This evaluation version allows the user to maintain a dictionary of up to 50 programs, 80 copybooks and 2,000 fields for the purposes of evaluating the product.

The COBOL Dictionary is licensed at a rate of $US250 per installed machine and may be purchased here:

Click on images to enlarge

Product Features

• Identify all programs using a particular copybook.
• Identify all programs calling a particular program, including those using a dynamic call interface.
• Identify all programs called by a given program.
• Identify all programs referencing a particular field, including details of it's type of usage: be it define, modify, or reference.
• Follow program call chains both "down" the chain to called programs to "up" the chain to those programs calling a given program.
• Easy to use Windows Winform graphic interface for usual queries, scripting interface available for complex or repetitive queries.
• In order to build the impact analysis database, the server requires a licence to Micro Focus Net Express 5.1 or Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2010. Each query workstation only requires the Microsoft .NET Framework.
• Double-click on an entry takes the user directly into edit the the entity positioned at the appropriate line.
• Full XML reporting of impact analysis. Click here for an example.

Examples of Functionality

• Find all programs accessing Billing Information record.
• Find all places where Claims subsystem is entered.

• Find all points where Accounting Amount is modified.
• Find all date fields that use a 2 character year.