Many MicroFocus COBOL applications originate from IBM or other systems, aligning with the COBOL 85 standards. These applications often adhere to standard COBOL application development guidelines. For such cases, the following resources might be more relevant:
However, some applications were originally designed using MicroFocus client-server architecture. This article will delve deeper into such applications, highlighting the unique features they offer, such as enhanced screen handling, library wrapping for operating system calls, and the utilization of Object-Oriented COBOL.
MicroFocus COBOL introduces an additional SCREEN SECTION for designing static screens. These are often found in Conversational programs, tailored for client-server deployments. SoftwareMining transforms these Conversational applications into an Application-Server architecture.
Additionally, MicroFocus COBOL often uses control characters for screen functions, like blanking the screen. SoftwareMining translates these characters into clearer methods, such as the Java/C# blankScreen() method.
MicroFocus COBOL includes a range of OS-specific APIs. After migration to Java or C#, designed for Application Servers, many of these calls become obsolete. Thus, each call should be evaluated individually.
Migrating MicroFocus applications that originated from mainframes requires considerations similar to the original code. For more details, refer to the translation guidelines for IBM Mainframe CICS or SQL and DB2 applications. Also, explore the Comparison of COBOL Migration strategies to delve into the 5 R's of modernization approaches.
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