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Pro*COBOL® Programmer's Guide Release 9.2 Part Number A96109-03 |
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# What's New in Pro*COBOL?

This section describes new features of Oracle9i releases and provides pointers to additional information. New features information from previous releases is also retained to help those users migrating to the current release.

The following sections describe the new features in Oracle Pro*COBOL:

- Oracle Database Release 9.2 New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2) New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle9i Release 1 (9.0.1) New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle8i Release 8.1.6 New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle8i Release 8.1.5 New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle8i Release 8.1.3 New Features in Pro*COBOL

- Oracle8 Database Release 8.0 New Features in Pro*COBOL

## Oracle Database Release 9.2 New Features in Pro*COBOL

TBD

## Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2) New Features in Pro*COBOL

There is no new feature added in Pro*COBOL for this release.

## Oracle9i Release 1 (9.0.1) New Features in Pro*COBOL

The Oracle9i Release 1(9.0.1) Pro*COBOL features and enhancements described in this section enables Pro*COBOL programs to use new Datetime types.

This section contains these topics:

- Globalization Support

  National Language Support (NLS) was re-named Globalization Support.

- New Datetime Datatypes

  Pro*COBOL supports five new datetime datatypes: `INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND`, `INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH`, `TIMESTAMP`, `TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE`, and `TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIMEZONE`. You can select from columns of these datatypes onto the `OCIInterval` and `OCIDateTime` host variables and into objects where attributes are datetime types.

## Oracle8i Release 8.1.6 New Features in Pro*COBOL

The features and enhancements described in this section enable Pro*COBOL programs to use multiple threads for better performance.

This section contains these topics:

- Support for Pro*COBOL Multithreading application

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.6 now supports multithreading applications. A context variable can now be declared using the SQL-CONTEXT pseudo-type. Also, declarations for host variables are now allowed in the LOCAL-STORAGE and THREAD-LOCAL-STORAGE sections.

  See Also: Chapter 12, "Multithreaded Applications"

## Oracle8i Release 8.1.5 New Features in Pro*COBOL

The Oracle8i Release 8.1.5 Pro*COBOL features and enhancements described in this section comprise the overall effort to make Pro*COBOL application development simpler.

This section contains these topics:

- Enhancement to WHENEVER statement

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.5 now allows the call of a subroutine as the action in the WHENEVER statement. The new syntax is: EXEC SQL WHENEVER <condition> DO CALL <subprogram> [USING id1 id2 ... idn] END-EXEC. This new functionality is very useful when writing nested programs.

  See Also: WHENEVER Directive

- Support for COBOL in-line comments

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.5 supports COBOL in-line comments that begin with two contiguous charaters "*>" preceded by a separator space, and ends with the last character position of the line. An in-line comment cannot be continued and can only be used in COBOL code.

  See Also: Comments

- Support for DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.5 has been enhanced to support the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA clause in the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. If the clause appears in the source file, then the comma will be allowed as a period is in any numeric literal in the VALUE clause.

  See Also: Decimal-Point is Comma

- Support for Optional Division Headers

  Previously, IDENTIFICATION, ENVIRONMENT, and DATA DIVISION headers were required to precede their respective division contents. As of Pro*COBOL 8.1.5, these headers are optional. Please note that the entire divisions were already optional, this enhancement addresses only the division "headers".

  See Also: Division Headers that are Optional

## Oracle8i Release 8.1.3 New Features in Pro*COBOL

The Oracle8i Release 8.1.3 Pro*COBOL features and enhancements described in this section includes the use of LOB in the Pro*COBOL application with other features.

This section contains these topics:

- Large Object (LOB) support

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 supports a way to declare LOB locators for all LOB types (BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB, and BFILE), provides the ability to allocate and free the LOB locators, and also provides a full set of embedded SQL statements for direct manipulation of LOB locators and their values. The values of certain attributes of LOBS are available through a new LOB DESCRIBE embedded SQL statement.

  See Also: Large Objects (LOBs)

- ANSI Dynamic SQL support

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 provides support for ANSI Dynamic SQL (also known as the SQL92 dynamic SQL) which should be used for new Method 4 applications. In ANSI dynamic SQL, descriptors are internally maintained by Oracle, while in the older Oracle dynamic SQL, the descriptors are defined in the user's program.

  See Also: ANSI Dynamic SQL

- Support for universal rowid

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 provides a mechanism to ALLOCATE and FREE rowid descriptors that are compatible with both physical rowids (associated with heap tables) and logical rowids (associated with index organized tables) Users declare rowid descriptors using a new Pro*COBOL pseudotype SQL-ROWID.

  See Also: Universal ROWIDs

- Support for DML returning

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 supports an optional RETURNING clause in the VALUES clause of an INSERT statement, and after the optional WHERE clause of a DELETE and UPDATE statement.

  See Also: DML Returning Clause

- Support for Tables of Group Items as host variables

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 supports tables of group items with elementary subordinate items as host variables in embedded SQL statements. The host tables of group items can be referenced in the INTO clause of a SELECT or a FETCH statement, and in the VALUES list of an INSERT statement.

  See Also: Tables of Group Items as Host Variables

- Support for SYSDBA and SYSOPER modes in the CONNECT statement

  In previous versions, users could connect with sysdba privileges by specifying:

  EXEC SQL CONNECT :<uid> IDENTIFIED BY :<pwd> END-EXEC where <uid> is a host variable containing "SYS" and <pwd> is a host variable containing "CHANGE_ON_INSTALL". The SYSDBA privileges are no longer available by default by using the preceding, thus Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 supports an optional IN MODE clause in the embedded CONNECT statement for the user to specify the SYSDBA or SYSOPER mode.

  See Also: Connecting to Oracle

- Support for user specification of runtime context

  Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 provides a way to declare a handle to a runtime context and use that handle with some new CONTEXT embedded SQL statements and directives (CONTEXT ALLOCATE, CONTEXT FREE, and CONTEXT USE). Pro*COBOL 8.1.3 does not support multithreaded applications.

  See Also: Runtime Contexts in Pro*COBOL

- Support for pre-fetching

  Oracle supports the notion of pre-fetching a number of rows when a query is executed. This increases performance by eliminating the need for a server round-trip when the rows are subsequently fetched.

  See Also: The PREFETCH Precompiler Option

## Oracle8 Database Release 8.0 New Features in Pro*COBOL

The Oracle8 Database Release 8.0.x Pro*COBOL features and enhancements described in this section comprises the use of nested program structures among others.

This section contains these topics:

- Support for Nested Programs

  Pro*COBOL 2.0.2 allows nested programs with embedded SQL within a single source file.

  See Also: Support for Nested Programs

- Improved error reporting

  Errors will be associated with the proper line in any list file produced or in any terminal output. "Invalid host variable" errors will clearly state why the given COBOL variable is invalid for use in embedded SQL.

  See Also: Improved Error Reporting on page A-6

- Support for using REDEFINES clause with group items

  The REDEFINES clause is allowed to redefine group items and be used in host variable declarations.

  See Also: REDEFINES Clause

- Support for FILLER

  The word FILLER can be used in host variable declarations.

  See Also: FILLER is Allowed

- New default datatype for PIC X

  The default datatype for PIC X variables has changed from VARCHAR2 (1) to CHARF (96). A new precompiler option is provided for backward compatibility.

  See Also: Default for PIC X

- Support for NCHAR data

  NCHAR data is now fully supported by the kernel. Previous releases of the precompiler supported this datatype with the NLS_LOCAL option.

  See Also: NLS_LOCAL, Multibyte Globalization Support Character Sets, Multibyte Datatypes