tinycobol/ANNOUNCE

TC-main:
TinyCOBOL is an effort to create a free COBOL 85 compiler. 

It generates GNU assembler for the IA32 (i386) Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, 
Win32 platforms. A executable binary can then be created using the GNU 
assembler and linker. 

The project is approaching the first beta release with many statements 
already implemented.


0.62:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler and run-time.

The pre-processor has been integrated back into the main compiler.
Improvemnents to error detection, reporting and parser recovery.
Support for dynamic loading of DLL's for the Win32 platform.


0.61:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler and run-time.


0.60:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler and run-time.

Improvemnents have been made in the following areas: locking for
relative files, better support of print files (write after and
before advancing) and better compatibility with 85 Standard for
some indexed file I/O operations.


0.59:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler and run-time.

Support for internationalization (en, pr_BR, it, fr) has been added.

Improvemnents have been made in the following areas: multi-line
comment entries in the identification division, run-time error
reporting, and plenty of new intrinsics.

Finally, there is now only one library, shared by default.


0.58:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler, run-time, the regression 
and NIST test suites.

Support for inline comments, DEBUGGING lines, declaratives (preliminary),
intrinsic functions (preliminary), INSPECT CONVERTING, concatenation 
(preliminary), have been added to the compiler.

The compiler front end and resource options have been enhanced 
to define the default compiler action (create executable or library).
The compiler can also create an static/shared libraries, from COBOL sources,
directly from the command line.

And finally, embedded SQL can be used with TC, by using a vendor supplied 
SQL pre-processor and libraries.


0.57:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler, run-time, the regression 
and NIST test suites.
Support for the ADD/SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING, RENAMES, statements
have been added to the compiler.

The compiler front end and resource options have been enhanced to 
enable TC to create an executable directly using the command line.
The compiler will now auto detect the TC auxiliary libraries required,
and include them in the link step.


0.56:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and some enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler, run-time, the regression 
test suite.

Support for the CHAIN, GOBACK statements, BLANK WHEN ZERO, 
INITIAL (preliminary), SPECIAL-NAMES (preliminary) clauses, 
COMPUTATIONAL-X type, have been added to the compiler.

The compiler front end has been enhanced to enable TC to create 
an executable directly using the command line.

The command line options have been changed to more closely reflect 
the GCC options.

Preliminary support for the Win32 (native, no emulation layer required)
platform using the MinGW (Mingw32) tool chain. 

A set of utilities have been added to enable TC testing 
for COBOL standard compatibility using the NIST test suite.

General notes:
Bison is the default parser, Berkeley's YACC (byacc) version 1.9.3
is now an option.
The configure script will now handle multiple versions library DB and
C compilers depending on the options selected.

Important note:
Effective with version 0.56, the command line options have been changed
to more closely reflect the GCC options.

The default action when no appropriate command line option is given,
defaults to 'x', create an executable (preprocess, compile, assemble and link). 

Previous version defaulted to 'S', generate assembler code (preprocess, compile).


0.55:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and enhancements.  
It includes updates to the main compiler, run-time,
the regression test suite.
The grammar was modified to enable compilation with Bison.
The MOVE run-time routines have been updated and improved.
ScreenIO has been updated to handle screen status and function keys.
Support for [SIGN IS] {LEADING/TRAILING} [SEPARATE] clauses,
have been added to the compiler run-time.
Preliminary work as started on the NIST test programs.

Important note:
Effective with version 0.55, to compile the TinyCOBOL compiler
will require Berkeley's YACC (byacc) version 1.9.3 or Bison.
Version 1.9.3 of YACC (byacc), only available on the snapshots web 
page, has been modified to handle huge grammars such as COBOL.
Using previous versions of Berkeley's YACC on the TinyCOBOL grammar,
will result in an abort on a table overflow error.


0.54:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and enhancements.  
It includes updates to the preprocessor, main compiler, RTS,
the regression test suite, EVALUATE, GOTO, READ, WRITE, RETURN,
DELETE, START, REWRITE statements.
Support for multiple WHEN clauses in SEARCH statement,
[SIGN IS] {LEADING/TRAILING} [SEPARATE] clauses,
FLOAT-LONG (COMP-2) FLOAT-SHORT (COMP-1) floating point types,
INSPECT...CONVERTING clause, have been added to the compiler.


0.53:
This release contains mainly bugs fixes, and enhancements.  
It includes updates to the preprocessor, math verbs, 
the regression test suite, gdb debug stabs, 
STRING/UNSTRING statements, ACCEPT from COMMAND-LINE and 
ENVIRONMENT-VARIABLE statements. 
Support for the dynamic CALL statement, 
ACCEPT  DAY, DAY-OF-WEEK, ON EXCEPTION and ERASE clauses, 
ADD and SUBTRACT (CORRESPONDING option) statements, 
EXTERNAL clause in the SELECT statement, BINARY-CHAR, 
BINARY-SHORT, BINARY-LONG, BINARY-DOUBLE and 
COMP-1/COMP-2 (preliminary) floating point types, 
support for the Debian package format 
have been added to the compiler.


0.52:
This release contains bugs fixes, and enhancements, 
including updates to the preprocessor, math verbs,
MOVE (CORRESPONDING option) statement, COMPUTE (exponent operator) statement,
enhancements to the regression test suite.
Support for the BLANK WHEN ZERO clause, SYNC clause, qualification,
OCCURS...DEPENDING ON... clause (variable-sized tables),
RECORD VARYING ... DEPENDING ON ... (variable-sized records) clause,
multiple record defines for FD entries, sequence of source programs,
have been added to the compiler.


0.51:
This release contains bugs fixes, and enhancements, 
including updates to the math verbs, the STRING statement,
file IO READ/WRITE statements, DISPLAY/ACCEPT statements,
SET statement, abbreviated conditional expressions.
Reference modification, pointer types, EXTERNAL semantics (preliminary)
have been added to the compiler.
The new pre-processor will now execute by default.
The Win32 (preliminary) platform, using the Cygwin emulation layer,
is now supported.


0.50:
This release contains bugs fixes, and code enhancements, 
including updates to the math verbs, the EVALUATE statement,
file OPEN/CLOSE statements, file LINE SEQUENTIAL IO.
The CALL BY CONTENT, JUSTIFIED RIGHT, and REPORT SECTION (preliminary) 
statements has been added to the COBOL grammar.
The DISPLAY/ACCEPT LINE/POSITION statements have been added, as an 
extension to the standard COBOL grammar.
Sample programs with CGI, SQL, and GUI interfaces have been added 
to the source distribution. 

0.4:
This release contains bugs fixes, and code enhancements, 
including updates to the GO TO statement, the screen I/O 
statements, SORT statements. A preprocessor has been added
to handle fixed and free syntax, and all COPY statements. 
Support for external file name assignment in SELECT and 
FD statements has been added as an extension to the standard 
COBOL 85 grammar.


0.3:
This release contains bugs fixes, and major modifications.  
It includes an update to the IF/ELSE statements to include 
abbreviated conditional expressions. The addition of static variables, 
the EVALUATE statements, variable length (1, 2, 4, 8) binary fields, 
the screen I/O statements. The CALL BY ... RETURNING variable has been 
added, as an extension to the standard COBOL 85 grammar.


0.2:
This release contains bugs fixes, and code enhancements, 
including updates to the IF/ELSE relational, class, name, 
sign conditionals statements. The CALL BY VALUE has been 
added, as an extension to the standard COBOL grammar.


0.1.5.5:
This minor release contains some bugs fixes, and some
code enhancements, including updates to the PERFORM
statements. With this release all PERFORM statements
are functional and conform to the COBOL 85 standard.


0.1.5.3:
In this release, along with some bug fixes, the
INITIALIZE, CURRENCY, PERFORM WITH TEST BEFORE/AFTER
option statements have been added to the COBOL
grammar.


0.1.5.0:
This release contains some additions to the COBOL 85
grammar and some bug fixes.


0.1.0.1:
bug fix release.


20000507:
An implemented SEARCH statement for tables, and more
bug fixes.


20000302:
Better configuration/installing, a new ability to read
environment variables using the ACCEPT verb, use of
library DB version 2.xx+, implementation of START ...
GREATER THAN or Relative files, an enhanced DISPLAY
verb to enable to direct output to stdout/stderr, and
many bug fixes.


991210:
Ability to use GDB for debugging, with COBOL source
lines listing, breakpoints, and variable
display/modifying, 32-bit binary storage and
operations on variables with "USAGE IS COMP", and
table access support using the SET statement.


991103:
The following features are implemented: ACCEPT from
time/date, DISPLAY, and file input/output (READ,
WRITE, REWRITE, START) for indexed, relative, line and
line sequential files. The functions for STRING,
UNSTRING, INSPECT, SET and ALTERNATE KEYS are
currently in development.


991028:
Initial release.