COBOL routines terminate with S0C4 / U4088 / U0299 abends

Products

• Vision:Excel

Issue/Introduction

VISION:Excel 7.0 applications invoking COBOL subroutines which execute successfully under prior releases may terminate with S0C4 / U4088 / U0299 abends. These abends occur if the default DYLINSTL parameters are used and the COBOL subroutine was compiled using a compiler that is not compliant with LE (IBM's Language Environment).

The default settings in R7.0 for the DYLINSTL site parameters LE and COBENV changed from the prior release to reflect the norm in shops adopting to current technology. However, if the VISION:Excel application invokes a COBOL routine that is non-LE compliant, the job will abnormally terminate due to that conflict.

Resolution

There are 2 ways to resolve this problem:

• Recompile the COBOL routine with an LE compliant compiler.
  This is the recommended solution.
  
  
• Change the site parameters:
  
  The DYLINSTL site parameters may be set as they were for the prior release as LE=N,COBENV=Y using the CUSTMJCL job delivered with the installation SOURCE library. Since the parameters LE and COBENV are mutually exclusive, this combination precludes the default use of LE for all VISION:Excel 7.0 applications utilizing loadlibs with this site parameter configuration.
  
  If this method is implemented and there are applications that could benefit from LE, then the OPTION statement may be used to add the LE parameter to the application SYSIN code. Adding the LE parameter automatically turns off COBENV, overriding the DYLINSTL LE and COBENV settings. (NOTE: The converse is not true; adding NOLE to the OPTION statement will not turn on COBENV.)