ob-cobol enables Org-Babel support for evaluating COBOL code.

#+begin_src cobol
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
    PROGRAM-ID. ob-cobol.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    DISPLAY "Hello COBOL".
#+end_src

#+RESULTS:
: Hello COBOL

Open the compiled source file with M-x ob-cobol-last-src-file.

This package was created with ob-rust as model.

• Default source format is free.
• Code with identification and procedure division will be compiled unchanged.
• A missing identification division will be added automatically.
• If there are no divisions, all the code will be moved to the procedure division.
• If a block with no divisions contains a line consisting of a horizontal ellipsis (…, Unicode U+2026, C-k ,. in evil-mode), the part before the ellipsis will be added to the working-storage section, the rest to the procedure division.

The following two blocks will produce the same result as the code from the overview. The first without identification division:

#+begin_src cobol
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    DISPLAY "Hello COBOL".
#+end_src

And the second without any divisions:

#+begin_src cobol
    DISPLAY "Hello COBOL".
#+end_src

Code with variables can be abbreviated as

#+begin_src cobol
    01 username PIC X(30) VALUE "Mainframe".
    …
    DISPLAY "Your name is " FUNCTION trim(username).
#+end_src

and will be expanded to

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
    PROGRAM-ID. sample01.

DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
    01 username PIC X(30) VALUE "Mainframe".

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    DISPLAY "Your name is " FUNCTION trim(username).

The default source format is changed for a single code block using the source-format header

#+begin_src cobol :source-format fixed
000100 01 username PIC X(30) VALUE "Mainframe B".
   …
000200 DISPLAY "Your name is " FUNCTION trim(username).
#+end_src

or globally in the init file

(setq ob-cobol-source-format "fixed")

In the same way you can change the dialect of the compiler with the dialect header

#+begin_src cobol :dialect ibm
*> some code in IBM COBOL
#+end_src

or in the init file

(setq ob-cobol-dialect "ibm")

Clone this repo to a folder on your desktop.

cd ~/git
git clone https://github.com/Tekki/ob-cobol

This will download the code to ~/git/ob-cobol. Then add it to your init file.

(use-package ob-cobol
  :load-path "~/git/ob-cobol/")

If you want to work in IBM dialect with fixed instead of free format, change the default.

(use-package ob-cobol
  :load-path "~/git/ob-cobol/"
  :config
  (setq ob-cobol-dialect "ibm"
        ob-cobol-source-format "fixed"))

ob-cobol expects a GnuCOBOL compiler accessible under cobc. If it is not located in the path, you can change variable ob-cobol-compiler. Another compiler will only work if it uses the same command line arguments.

cobol-mode is not required, but useful for syntax highlighting. Remember to set the correct source format.

(use-package cobol-mode
  :ensure t
  :init
  (setq cobol-source-format 'free))

ob-cobol is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.