COBOL Language Support installs statistics

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COBOL Language Support

COBOL Language Support enhances the COBOL programming experience on your IDE. The extension leverages the language server protocol to provide autocomplete, syntax highlighting and coloring, and diagnostic features for COBOL code and copybooks. The COBOL Language Support extension can also connect to a mainframe using the Zowe Explorer extension to resolve remotely stored copybooks in mainframe data sets and USS files. COBOL Language Support also supports COBOL programs which interact with Datacom, CICS, and DB2 SQL. An add-on extension which adds support for the IDMS dialect is available on the VS Code Marketplace.

COBOL Language Support recognizes files with the extensions .cob, .cbl and .cobol as COBOL files.

<img align="left" alt="This extension is part of the Code4z experience" width="80" height="82" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BroadcomMFD/code4z/refs/heads/main/icon5.png" />

COBOL Language Support is part of the Code4z experience from Broadcom, which offers a modern experience for mainframe application developers. To get started with Code4z, check out our foundational extension pack.

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COBOL Language Support is part of the Che4z open-source project. Contributions and feedback are always welcome. To contribute, see our GitHub repository. If you have a question about how to accomplish something with the extension, or come across a problem, file an issue on GitHub.

<details> <summary><span style="font-size: 1.5em"><b>Address Software Requirements</b></span><hr></summary>

There are no client or server-side prerequisites for COBOL Language Support.

Compatibility

The COBOL Language Support extension is supported on Visual Studio Code and Github Codespaces.

This extension is not compatible with other extensions that provide COBOL support except COBOL Control Flow and the dialect add-ons published by Broadcom. We recommend that you disable all other COBOL-related extensions to ensure that COBOL Language Support functions correctly.

The COBOL Language Support extension only supports IBM Enterprise COBOL. Other versions of COBOL are not supported.

Double-byte character sets and the DBCS compiler option are not supported.

</details> <details> <summary><span style="font-size: 1.5em"><b>Configure Server Runtime</b></span><hr></summary>

If you have Java on your workstation, COBOL Language Support uses the Java binaries in the PATH variable to execute. To use a different installation of Java, open the COBOL Language Support extension settings and specify the path in the Java Home setting.

If you do not have Java on your workstation, COBOL Language Support uses the native binary (engine.exe) to execute. If your environment does not allow engine.exe to execute, contact your system administrator to add an exception for engine.exe.

</details> <details> <summary><span style="font-size: 1.5em"><b>Integrate with Zowe Explorer and Explorer for Endevor</b></span><hr></summary>

Integrating COBOL Language Support with the Zowe Explorer and Explorer for Endevor extensions enables you to:

• Load your data sets containing COBOL code directly from the data set tree.
• Load your COBOL code directly from Endevor elements.
• Enable remote copybook support.

Both Zowe Explorer and Explorer for Endevor are available as part of the Code4z foundation pack. A Zowe Explorer zosmf or zftp profile with credentials and a connection URL is also required to retrieve copybooks from mainframe data sets.

To enable automatic dependency retrieval from Endevor, ensure your site has enabled the Endevor REST API version 2.16 or higher (PTF LU09053).

<a href="https://www.openmainframeproject.org/all-projects/zowe/conformance"><img alt="This extension is Zowe v3 conformant" src="https://artwork.openmainframeproject.org/other/zowe-conformant/zowev3/explorer-vs-code/color/zowe-conformant-zowev3-explorer-vs-code-color.png" width=20% height=20% /></a>

</details> <details> <summary><span style="font-size: 1.5em"><b>Language and LSP Features</b></span><hr></summary>

COBOL Language Support provides the following COBOL syntax awareness features:

<details> <summary><span style="font-size: 1.3em">Autocomplete</span></summary>

Autocomplete speeds up the coding process by intuitively suggesting the most likely variables or paragraphs to follow existing code. The extension provides live suggestions while you type for:…