COBOL Core Dump

Use a COBOL Core Dump debug configuration to debug a core file that was generated when your application crashed. See To create a core dump for details on how to produce the file when an application crashes. The options are:

COBOL Project

The project that will be used while debugging.

You can debug a core file without a project. You need to specify the location of the debug symbols file (.idy) on the other tabs of the debug configuration.

Connection Properties

Enter values for these fields if you want to debug your project or the application when it is running on a remote machine.

Remote Host

The name or IP address of the remote machine.

Specify the port on which cobdebugremote process will listen on the remote host

When you are debugging an application on a remote machine, the cobdebugremote process (or cobdebugremote64 for a 64-bit process) needs to be running on that machine. ¹

If you are developing the application on the remote machine

If you are using Visual COBOL Development Hub, the IDE starts the cobdebugremote process (or cobdebugremote64 for a 64-bit process) automatically on the remote machine when you start debugging. You do not need to select a port as a random one is picked when the process starts, but if you select this option you can assign a specific port in the cobdebugremote port field. If you do specify a port, the process starts automatically on that port.

If you are developing the application on the local machine and debugging remotely

You must first start the cobdebugremote process (or cobdebugremote64 for a 64-bit process) from a command prompt.

The process takes the following options:

no options

Starts the process and opens a random port for remote connections. The port number is displayed in the console.

machine=name

Specify the machine that the process is running on. Only valid with the stop option.

port

port=nnnnn

Specify the port to use to listen for connection requests.

port=nnnnn-yyyyy

Specify the range of ports to use. If port nnnnn is in use, the next port is tried until a free port is found. If no free ports are found in the range, the utility returns an error.

Note: You must enter the same number you set as the port option in the cobdebugremote port field of your debug configuration.

repeat

After the debug session has been completed, start listening for another connection. If no option is specified, the process exits after the debug session has completed.

stop

Causes the process that is listening on the port to exit. Must be used with the port option. This is only valid when the process is waiting for a connection.

If you run the process with no options, you must enter the port number displayed in the console in the cobdebugremote port field.

Use X Server

For SSH-only connection types (Micro Focus DevHub SSH Only), you do not need to use an X Server implementation to echo the remote program output back to your local machine; for simple I/O programs, you can display the output in the Console view within the IDE. For more complex programs, you may still want to use an X Server implementation, for a better display experience.

To direct the program output to the Console view, ensure Use X Server is not selected. For other connection types, this option is unavailable, and an X Server implementation must be used.

X Server (DISPLAY)

If you are debugging an application on a remote UNIX machine using Visual COBOL Development Hub, enter the identifier for the X server that will display the remote program output on a local Windows machine. The default value is client machine name:0.0.

Before debugging, make sure that the X server is running and that the remote machine xhost configuration has the correct access permissions. You can use the xhost + command to add your host or username to the list of those permitted.

Core Dump File

Enter the location of where a core file is stored. If you only specify the directory, and no filename, Eclipse will prompt you for the filename when the debugger starts. The filename is cblcore by default, but you can change this using the core_filename run-time tunable.

Executables Location

Identify a working directory. You can set this automatically to whichever directory you chose to store the core file.

Debug Options

• To ensure debugging works correctly, you must indicate when the application you are debugging is 64-bit.
• The Require program symbols (.idy) to match the program option is selected by default, which only allows debugging of native COBOL programs if the symbols file matches the COBOL program (in that it was produced at the same time). To disable the check, clear this option.