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z System LPEX Editor Limitations for COBOL Conditional Statements

Troubleshooting


Problem

This document lists symptoms and limitations for COBOL conditional statements in the z System LPEX Editor.

Symptom

  • The conditional statements that are not sent to the compiler are not correctly highlighted as comments.
  • Errors in conditional statements are not parsed and therefore not marked in the editor. 
  • Conditional statements are underlined.

Cause

These symptoms are a known limitation of the z System LPEX Editor.

Environment

Windows or Linux Client

Diagnosing The Problem

Enterprise COBOL Version 6.2 and later supports Conditional Compiler statements, which are marked with ">>". These Conditional Compiler statements determine which lines of source code are evaluated by the compiler and by extension, the parser. Statements that are sent to the compiler are highlighted in the editor and parsed as normal. Statements that are not sent to the compiler are displayed or colored as comments.

In the z System LPEX Editor, conditional statements that are not sent to the compiler are not correctly highlighted as comments. Instead, these lines are highlighted normally. If there are any errors in these lines, the errors are not found because they are not parsed. This behavior is intended because the LPEX editor is supposed to highlight words even when the parse fails.

Also, when changes are made to the source code, syntax warnings might be displayed in the editor because parsing does not complete until the file is saved and reopened in the LPEX editor.

These limitations apply to COBOL and copybook source that includes COBOL conditional compiler directives. These limitations do not exist for the Eclipsed-based COBOL Editor.

Resolving The Problem

Use the COBOL Editor instead.

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Document Information

Modified date:
26 August 2021

UID

swg22008018