Problem:

Are old Acubench projects compatible with more recent versions of the ACUCOBOL-GT extend suite IDE?

Can a project created with Acubench 4.3 be opened with Acubench 8.1.3.1 or 9.2.4?

Resolution:

Old Acubench projects can be opened directly by up-to-date releases of Acubench, only if they were created with Acubench 5.x or later.

In case these projects were made using an old Acubench product (i.e. 4.3), an intermediate step should be executed.

Please note that once converted to a newer version, a project cannot be restored to its previous version.
A backup of the original projects to migrate is highly suggested.

To convert a project from Acubench 4.3 to 9.2.4, an installation of Acubench 5.2.1 is required.
Contact your local SupportLine engineer if you need Acubench 5.2.1.
(this version is out-of-support, but it's necessary to perform this migration process)

Here are the steps to follow:

1 - start Acubench 5.2.1;

2 - use "Open Workspace" menu voice to open the project to migrate (i.e.: myProject43.Prj);

3 - click OK to the following two popups (confirmation and creation of FD directory);

4 - when "Upgrade Environment Settings" popup is shown, change the path to the BIN directory of version 5.2.1;

5 - click on "Upgrade" and a list of .smf and .cbl files is shown;

6 - click on "Convert";

7 - a warning popup may appear: "Some programs have the same structure file". In this case, click on "Cancel" and deselect .smf files that have a corresponding .cbl file. (i.e.: if the list shows both login.cbl and login.smf, then select .cbl file, only);

7a - click on "Convert" to have the project converted to version 5;

7b - the screen masks related to .smf files previously deselected are not imported, yet. To do it, move the mouse over the voice "Screen" of the program name, click on "Add screen" and then click on the .smf file names to import. (i.e.: login.smf). This operation should be executed for each .smf file deselected in step 7;

8 - click on "Save all" and close the project WITHOUT GENERATING AND WITHOUT COMPILING;

9 - close Acubench 5.2.1 and start Acubench 9.2.4;

10 - open the converted project in Acubench 9.2.4;

11 - before compiling, we must avoid Acubench generating .wrk, .evt and .prd copy files. This is due to the fact that projects generated with Acubench 4.x have no automatic TAGs, used by Acubench to generate the source code in the correct sequence. Developers will be able to modify the source code editing the .cbl source code, only. To avoid the generation of the mentioned copy files, follow one of these two steps:

11a - select menu "Tools" - "Options" - "Code Generator". Select the radio button "Split to multiple copy files" and unselect the boxes for "Working Storage", "Event paragraph" and "Procedure division". This is a global Acubench setting and it will be available for every new project;

11b - select the program name, right click to view the popup menu and click on "Properties...". Move to the "Code Generation" tab, unselect "Follow project default options", select the radio button "Split to multiple copy files" and unselect the boxes for "Working Storage", "Event paragraph" and "Procedure division". This is a local Acubench setting and it will affect this program, only. This step should be done for each migrated program;

12 - now the project can be saved, generated and compiled;

13 - every new modification to the source code should be edited directly in the .cbl file. To do this, move the mouse on the program name, right click to view the popup menu and click on "View progname.cbl";

14 - every new screen can be created graphically using the Screen Designer, but events should be edited directly in the .cbl file. The best approach is to keep migrated projects as they are and create a new distinct project if you need to write new graphical screens.

Micro Focus SupportLine engineers will be available to help with a migration process, if necessary.