Re: [open-cobol-list] libdb Licensing - READ

[David Essex]

Roger While wrote:

> Re: VBISAM -
> Try this :
> ... vbisamcvs.tar.gz
> Usual configure/make/make install

With your version, both tests seam to work.

However, much (much, much, much ...) more testing will be required.

BTW, the documentation is in MacroS**t Word8. Would it be possible to
convert it to HTML or even RTF ?


> Well, TC, OC and VBISAM were never designed to run natively
> under Win. However, OC and VBISAM do run under Cygwin and
> supposedly under Ming. (Maybe TC too ?

Actually TC is derived from a DOS COBOL compiler, which was ported to Linux.

The only file IO issues which arose with TC was indexed file support on
Win32. This required a port of BDB (1.86), first to Cygwin then to MinGW.

Did some one do a port of VBISAM to MinGW ?

I could not get VBISAM to compile using MinGW. If memory serves me,
there are some functions and/or structures which were not available on
MinGW.

BTW, OC can be considered to be platform-independent. According to the
SF forums, VBISAM is not. I guess if it supports UN*X and Win32
file-systems, it should cover the majority of users.


> Both VBISAM and C-ISAM do have transaction facilities.

According to the manual, 'transaction facilities' are available on
VBISAM to deal with different processes accessing the same record.

Unfortunately there no tests to verify this claim.

Generally, some sort of managing facility (external process) would be
required to manage the concurrency issues.


> Interesting point - How does one specify in Cobol if one wants
> transactions ?

The LOCK clauses could be used, which now are part of the 2002 COBOL
standard.

But generally, as in the past, concurrency is dealt with externally by
some other process (facility).