ACUCOBOL-GT provides extensive compatibility with HP COBOL II/XL. On the HP e3000, in HP COBOL compatibility mode, ACUCOBOL-GT can compile and run HP COBOL programs that use HP COBOL extensions, HP e3000 intrinsics, VPLUS forms, and KSAM and IMAGE data sources. On other platforms, ACUCOBOL-GT 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.
The term Compatibility describes how ACUCOBOL-GT is compatible with HP COBOL. It does not refer to the compatibility mode on HP 3000 series 900 computers that allows MPE/iX V applications to run on MPE/iX XL machines without recompilation. This is commonly referred to as compatibility mode (CM) by HP e3000 users.
The specific version of HP COBOL with which ACUCOBOL-GT is compatible is defined in HP COBOL II/XL Reference Manual. References to HP COBOL in this topic refer to HP COBOL II/XL.
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 your HP e3000 system, or any system supported by ACUCOBOL-GT.