This document walks you through the process of integrating additional preprocessors with
Micro Focus Enterprise Developer. It is intended for third-party vendors who want to extend Enterprise Developer with their own tooling
and for administrators who are implementing the integration with the additional preprocessors.
Note: Additional preprocessors integrated with
Enterprise Developer are supported only in native COBOL applications.
Enterprise Developer is a contemporary development suite for
Microsoft Visual Studio that enables mainframe developers to maintain, develop and modernize mainframe applications environments regardless of whether
they are to be deployed back on the mainframe or onto an alternative platform.
Enterprise Developer is the smart and simple way to modernize, develop and maintain mainframe applications. It offers advanced capabilities editing,
debugging, compiling, and integrated testing.
Some of the
Enterprise Developer functionality can be extended with third-party tooling for which several extension points exist. For example,
Enterprise Developer can be extended with additional code generation tools such as preprocessors and precompilers.
Though often the two terms are used interchangeably, there is a slight difference between the two:
- A preprocessor is a technology that converts the source code before it is passed to the COBOL Compiler. A preprocessor takes
and modifies the original source code in the memory, and does not generate a new source file. Background syntax checking is
supported for preprocessors and debugging debugs the original source file.
- Precompilers take the original source code and generate a COBOL source file from it. This new COBOL source file is the one
that is compiled by the COBOL Compiler. Background syntax checking is not supported in the generated file and debugging only
debugs the generated file and not the original source file.
This guide uses the term preprocessors but the instructions equally apply when you are integrating precompilers.
Note:
- Currently,
Micro Focus supports the integration of additional preprocessors and precompilers with
Enterprise Developer. To integrate other tools with
Enterprise Developer you need to create
Visual Studio extensions.
- If you need assistance with technical issues regarding the integration of additional preprocessors, contact
Micro Focus
SupportLine.