[open-cobol-list] COBOL utilities project (was: open-cobol-0.9.6)

[David Essex]

At 08:30 PM 14/06/02 +1000, Tim Josling wrote:

> ...
> A few questions:
>
> License? LGPL would be good.

The programs could be released under the GPL and libraries under the LGPL.

> Can we make the code 
>
> A) front-end agnostic. 
> No 'int display_number (struct tiny_cobol_number *n);' types of things
> B) ANSI C?
>
> What coding standards would you propose, if any? I am used to gcc where they
> are very fussy about fullstops on comments and all. Maybe that is over
the top
> but I do find it very useful to have a comment at top of file and before a
> function saying what it is for.

I have no preference with coding standards, as long you start and stick
with one.

The only criteria I have is that sources should configure, compile and run
on all supported platforms, from old libc5 Linux to native Win32 (MinGW).


Tim, just a few questions regarding COBOL4GCC.

How is COBOL4GCC going to deal with large numbers, specifically
intermediate variables which require 33 digits, according to the COBOL 2002
draft standard.

How is COBOL4GCC going to deal with indexed files ? Will it also be using DB ?

The first project will probably be the NIST test suite. Currently there are
two versions, one for TC and one for OC. Do you have any comments
suggestions on this ?


Does nay else have any comments and or suggestions ? 

Rildo, what do you think of this proposal ?





David Essex