Re: COBOL Translations?

[Andy Carroll <acarroll -at- WEB -dot- NET>]

Hi Jerolynn,

>Do any tools exist to convert COBOL code to some form of documentation, or
>to extract some of the useful code?

I've never heard of any. I know there are simplistic functions that point
out where variables are used and in what context, but I haven't heard of
any that document what is really going on. On the other hand I haven't
worked with COBOL for several years, and even then without liberal
funding for fancy programming tools.

>Can you use the number of lines of code (100,000 for this one) as a factor
>in estimating the time required to do the job? If you can, can I? Any
>guidelines on this one?

Well, obviously this will take longer than a 1000 line program, but a lot
of it has to do with how well the program is written. If it is well
structured and commented, your job will be relatively easy. However, as
it has been modified from its original design, the original comments may
be unmodified and misleading. And the changes may or may not have been
well organized--it depends on how extensive the changes were and how much
time was put into keeping things simple and clear. All of which means you
will have to get a representative sample of the code and see how
convoluted it is.

Good luck.

Andy


_____________________________________________
  Andy Carroll      acarroll -at- web -dot- net      Vancouver, Canada
_____________________________________________

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