COBOL Smart Differencer
The COBOL Smart Differencer tool compares two COBOL source files to determine the changes made from one to determine the other. It is a member of SD's family of SmartDifferencer tools. An example of the COBOL Smart Differencer's results can be seen here. The example illustrates both the text output of the tool and a graphical user interface for the Smart Differencer that Semantic Designs offers as a plug-in for the Rational Developer for System Z™ (RDz) Environment.
Download an evaluation version
COBOL Smart Differencer Features
- Compares two COBOL files and produces list of explicit changes
- Available for different COBOL dialects: ANSI85, IBM VS II, and IBM Enterprise
- Understands COBOL language syntax precisely:
- All keywords, operators, and identifiers
- Integer and floating constants as their numeric value
- Whitespace (ignored)
- Comments of various types are ignored
- Output in terms of language syntax elements: identifiers, expressions, statements, paragraphs, etc.
- More succinct output than a conventional string diff tool, with coherent explanations and code display rather than simple string dumps
- Detects consistent renaming within an arbitrary block of code
- Generates deltas in two forms:
- Human readable format, showing location of deltas type (language nonterminals), locations (line,column) and before and after text
- Summary form, showing just succinct summary of delta types and locations
- Can process batches of files, specified either manually or through a COBOL-based file-selector GUI.
- Input encoding in ASCII, European ASCII, or UNICODE (UTF-8 or UTF-16)
- Output encoding in ASCII, European ASCII, or UNICODE (UTF-8 or UTF-16)
Semantic Designs also provides other COBOL tools.
