GUI ScreenIO for Windows

 ScreenIO.com


Customize GS.COB for Your Compiler

The GUI ScreenIO runtime DLL will work with virtually any 32-bit COBOL compiler. 

In order to accomplish this, GUI ScreenIO includes the COBOL source code for a small intermediate module (GS.COB) that your application calls and which, in turn, calls the GUI ScreenIO runtime DLL using the correct linkage conventions for your COBOL compiler, as shown in this sketch:

Therefore, the first thing you need to do is to configure GS.COB for your compiler

We presently supply versions of GS.COB to support these compilers:

Click the link to your compiler (above) and follow the instructions to modify GS.COB for your compiler, compile it, and you're ready for the next step.

 

And one more point:  NEVER CANCEL GS.  Some users have taken it upon themselves to cancel the GS subroutine that these instructions tell you how to prepare.  DON'T DO IT.  There is no memory saving to be gained via a CANCEL of the subroutine because it is really tiny.

Best Practices:

The GS.COB program has an Mandatory Shutdown section that only pertains to use of your application under the Client Server layer.  This section terminates the application upon request of the Server, such as would happen when the server is shutdown, or if the connection is lost to the remote client.  It is your very last chance to do a graceful shutdown.  Any attempt to display another panel after a Mandatory Shutdown will cause your application to be terminated by the server.

You  Must NOT pop up any "Are You Sure" boxes in response to a Mandatory Shutdown.   With client server applications, the server will tell your application to shutdown if it loses connection to the client.  Therefore it will be impossible to display the "are you sure" message and the server will be forced to abend your application.

Its better for you to handle this properly, by closing files, databases, etc.  Many COBOL compilers handle a stop run properly by closing files for you.  However, this may or may not be the proper thing to do (half completed transactions, partial records written, etc, and it may not work with other types of third-party database engines.  You may call another subroutine before the stop run to handle these graceful termination tasks, but do not call GS to display another panel.  You can call GS to close the main container.

Examine the code in GS.COB and see if it meets your needs.  The mandatory shutdown code in GS.COB is  enabled by default, but will only be invoked by the server, and it will never happen when NOT using the client/server.  There is no reason to disable this code, but you may want to enhance it.


© 2000-2019 Norcom, all rights reserved 

TOC

Send feedback to Norcom