Hi,

I'm a Mainframe programmer and quite new to FOCUS. I've seen on this site and others, references to a utility that will convert a COBOL copybook to a FOCUS Master, but that's all I find... references to it's existence, never any details. Can someone provide more information?... such as how do I access and use it. We run our FOCUS as EXECs, so I'm looking to do this in a batch environment.

Thanks

Tom

Tom,

From memory, the translator was a premium (you had to pay) product that was out and about circa 1998 ish? Not sure that it is still available for the later releases.

best route is to call your local IB folks and ask them.

T

Official title Cobol FD Translator. Available for FOCUS on OS/390, was still going strong(?) 3 years ago.

For when you had many Cobol programs that described your data in VSAM or ISAM, it did make things easier than running through the COBOL file descriptor.

Docs are here.

Tom,

I believe that I have some simple routines for converting COBOL copybooks into WebFOCUS metadata. I used these back in the Y2K days when helping clients move to new ERP packages. I will have to dig through my archives to find them.

Since then, I have built several other types of conversion tools in case those are of value to you. I have a complete application suite for automatically convert FOCUS, NOMAD, QMF/SQL, and Oracle Portal into WebFOCUS. Development is in the works for a new feature for Crystal Reports, and we are also investigating Cognos Impromptu.

Send me an e-mail and let me know how best to contact you.

Sincerely,

Doug Lautzenheiser
General Manager, Partner Intelligence
4445 Lake Forest Drive, Suite 490
Cincinnati, OH 45242
DLautzenheiser@PartnerPS.com

Tom,
We use the CTF a lot at my work in both the batch and online mode. It makes reading sequential & VSAM files much easier.

The latest documentation that I have is located in the 'FOCUS for Mainframe Documentation - Version 7.3', in the Supplementary Documentation Set.

I remember that we got this back in the 80's as part of our the EDA purchase but am not sure if it was billable.

If it is installed at your site, you should be able to enter FOCUS via TSO and from the FOCUS prompt (>) enter 'EX CTF30'. Please note that sometimes it is CTF30n instead of just CTF.

Good Luck,
Michelle