Introduction to the Runtime Manual

This Runtime Manual provides a summary of the options, variables, and error codes that are used with the ACUCOBOL^TM-GT runtime system. The runtime system is part of the extend^TM family of Acucorp solutions.

ACUCOBOL-GT is a single-pass ANSI X3.23-1985 COBOL compiler. A successful compile produces an object-code file that is ready to be run by the ACUCOBOL-GT runtime system, referred to in this booklet as runcbl.

No linking is needed to run the program. Any programs that are called during execution are loaded dynamically at runtime. Subprograms written in C may be linked into the runtime system directly, and then called by a COBOL program with the CALL verb.

The Windows version of the runtime is encapsulated in a dynamic link library (DLL). So you can call the runtime from other programming languages such as Visual Basic.

The runtime system has a symbolic source-level debugger built into it. The end user may cooperate with the application developer to use some of the debugging capabilities.

ACUCOBOL-GT currently runs under Windows 95 and 98 and ME, Windows NT 3.5 and 4.0, and Windows 2000, as well as the following character-based systems: Extended DOS, Unix, OS/2, and VMS. ACUCOBOL-GT uses the Vision indexed file system to manage its indexed data files. The product comes with two file utility programs: vutil and vio.

vutil can be used to examine files, extract data records, and rebuild corrupt indexes. vio is a file transfer utility.

Note: Unless otherwise indicated, the references to "Windows" and "Windows NT" in this manual denote all 32-bit versions of the Windows and Windows NT operating systems. Those versions are: Windows 95 and 98 and ME, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000. In those instances where it is necessary to make a distinction among the individual versions of those operating systems, we refer to them by their specific version numbers ("Windows 2000", "Windows NT 4.0", etc.).