Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

I'm bit confused to understand that how can I determine if Enterprise COBOL is currently installed or some other compiler?

You should be looking at the "top" of the compile-listing of your COBOL Programs. Does not that help?

That is one way of knowing it Anuj - is there any other way?

Ask your site support group. They will know.

If you're wanting to know if there is any way in general of knowing (from looking at data sets for example), then the answer is no. Although COBOL typically installs into version-specific data sets such as IGY.V5R1M0.SIGYCOMP, many sites use a non-version-specific data set name such as IGY.SIGYCOMP and copy the library as part of the production move. This is to simplify maintenance since the version-specific name otherwise has to be updated in a number of spots (link list, each and every compile procedure, third-party products such as Endevor or Panvalet) for each new release. A system programmer could look in the load module for the compiler and determine the release from the IBM product information but many times application programmers do not have the access to do so.

What Anuj has said is the simplest way and the only possible way for an Application Developer. As Robert said, asking around (with Support) is the only possible way then, unless you're a Systems Programmer.

Looking at this thread and the other question comes to mind that - How to find whether it is VS COBOL-II or OSVS COBOL?

I've read that for OS/VS modules the 4 bytes beginning at offset X'14' will give the compiler name and release number, e.g. VSR3 - is it true? Does it apply to Enterprise COBOL and OSVS COBOL too?

Check out file 321 on the CBT tape (http://www.cbttape.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) for a program that can analyze COBOL load modules and give you information about them such as compiler used and compile options.

You are also over-simplifying the history of COBOL on IBM systems. The actual COBOL compilers for the last 20-odd years have been:
OS/VS COBOL
VS COBOL II
COBOL/370
COBOL FOR MVS & VM
COBOL FOR OS/390 & VM
ENTERPRISE COBOL FOR z/OS & OS/390
ENTERPRISE COBOL FOR z/OS
Most of these had multiple releases over the years, too.

Thanks Robert and Anuj.

This gives much more than what I was looking forward to, though sorry for a late reply.

As we talk about compilers here - is it possible that a company can have more than one COBOL compilers? Like Enterprise and COBOL II both?

It would be rare but not impossible for a company to have two COBOL (or other language) compilers. Depending upon the circumstances, a company might have kept the VS COBOL II compiler (for example) around even after upgrading to Enterprise COBOL. The older compiler would generally be accessed by use of a STEPLIB to point to the compiler library since the newer compiler would be installed in the link list (usually).