Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

This document describes the syntax, semantics and usage of the COBOL programming language as implemented by the current version of OpenCOBOL. OpenCOBOL is an open-source COBOL compiler and runtime environment. The OpenCOBOL compiler generates C code which is automatically compiled and linked. While originally developed for UNIX operating systems, OpenCOBOL can also be built for MacOS computers or Windows computers utilizing the UNIX-emulation features of such tools as Cygwin and MinGW1. It has also been built as a truly native Windows application utilizing Microsoft’s freelydownloadable Visual Studio Express package to provide the C compiler and linker/loader.