[open-cobol-list] OpenCobol setup troubles (error: libcob.h: No such file or directory)

[Andrew Pennebaker]

I followed Gary Cutler's instructions for installing OpenCobol 1.1 binaries for Windows, including setting the environment variables, but I can't compile Hello World. Somehow Cobol has trouble finding its own include files.

C:\> cobc -x hello.cob

error: libcob.h: No such file or directory

Is there an environment variable I can set that will inform Cobol to look for libcob.h in its include directory?

I also tried using Sergey's prebuilt binaries, but they require cl.exe. In other words, they expect every OpenCobol user is already knee deep in VisualStudio. I'm not sure I want to commit to such a large prerequisite; I rather like GCC and MinGW, and I really like Cutler's idea of bundling whatever compilers are necessary with the OpenCobol distribution, to save users the trouble of looking up compiler information. It looks like Cutler's distribution just needs a few more tweaks in order to be fully operational.

I'm preparing a one-click installer for OpenCobol that sets the proper environment variables and everything, I just need to get cobc -x hello.cob working based on your submitted binaries. If we can resolve this, I'll be sure to reply with a link to a one-click MSI Windows installer, as well as the install source for building it.

Cheers,

Andrew Pennebaker

www.yellosoft.us