ACUCOBOL-GT provides extensive compatibility with HP COBOL II/XL. It supports HP COBOL syntax extensions and the HP COBOL preprocessor functions. HP COBOL syntax extensions have the same meaning and generate the same results on all platforms. The ACUCOBOL-GT HP COBOL preprocessor provides the same functional capabilities on all platforms.
ACUCOBOL-GT and HP COBOL share a common core of ANSI/ISO standard COBOL. In addition, most HP COBOL extensions to the ANSI/ISO standard are supported by ACUCOBOL-GT via the -Cp compiler option. The -Cp option, set either on the command line or in the CBLFLAGS environment string, puts the ACUCOBOL-GT compiler in HP COBOL compatibility mode. In this mode, ACUCOBOL-GT performs actions and accepts features of HP COBOL that it does not otherwise perform or allow.
Users of ACUCOBOL-GT's HP COBOL compatibility mode, in addition to getting HP COBOL support, gain the benefit of many useful ACUCOBOL-GT extensions and a powerful set of complementary technologies. For a list of ACUCOBOL-GT extensions to the ANSI/ISO standard, see Extensions. For a brief introduction to these technologies, see Product Overview.
ACUCOBOL-GT includes an integrated development environment (IDE) for COBOL called AcuBench. AcuBench extends and enhances the ACUCOBOL-GT compiler and runtime system with an advanced suite of GUI-based development tools for COBOL. AcuBench lets you develop and maintain your COBOL applications in an integrated, developer-friendly Microsoft Windows environment and deploy them on any system supported by ACUCOBOL-GT.