XML and COBOL

[Steven Marcus]

My apologies if I did not answer the original question. In my
post I was describing how an organization I work with will be
processsing XML on the mainframe. We came to the conclusion that
parsing XML from inside COBOL apps was impractical and
unnecessary. Others may differ.

To clarify our tactics:

All new XML-oriented apps will be written in Java. Interfaces to
existing apps are via files and/or access to database tables via
JDBC. The java apps will use SAX/DOM as appropriate. 

There has been some talk of using COBOL to _output_ data using
XML-syntax. No attempt has been made to interface an XML
processor directly to COBOL.

I write this with the hope that someone wrestling with these
issues will see that alternatives exist to using COBOL XML
parsers -- if you are running a recent release of OS/390.

good luck!
Steven Marcus
Aware Technologies, Inc.

--- Ken North <ken_north at csi.com> wrote:
> Steven Marcus wrote:
> 
> << If you are running a relatively recent release of OS/390
> (not
> MVS) you can use an XML parser written in Java. IBM's java
> parser is available at alphaworks.ibm.com and supports
> EBCDIC<->Unicode conversions.
> 
> You can integrate your COBOL and Java environments thru the
> file
> system bridge available with java-OS/390, or via DB/2. There
> may
> be other ways of passing data between Java apps and COBOL but
> someone else will have to speak up.
> 
> Steven,
> 
> The issue isn't being able to bridge data and files, but being
> able to
> process information in memory. The forthcoming DB2 XML
> Extender will
> include the capability of bridging XML files and mapping them
> to DB2
> columns. That's not the problem.
> 
> The problem is working with in-memory structures to process
> document
> objects or events. The extant XML parsers support the Document
> Object
> Model (DOM) and SAX (events). If you use a Java XML parser
> that targets
> DOM, for example, it produces an object structure Java
> understands, but
> not COBOL. You'd have to write a library that interfaces COBOL
> to Java
> objects using CALLs, not disk READs and WRITEs.
> 
> Not an easy proposition -- unless someone has implemented
> Object COBOL
> with bindings for IDL, Java, etc.
> 
> 
> ================== Ken North =============================
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Ken_North
> ken_north at csi.com  71301.1306 at compuserve.com  KenNorth at msn.com
> Ken North Computing   2604B El Camino Real, #351 Carlsbad, CA
> 92008-1214
> ===========================================================
> 
> 
> 
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