Install GnuCOBOL on Mac M3 - Christopher Baughman

Image credit: GnuCOBOL

Overview

COBOL mainly runs on mainframes and systems that you will not be able to easily access. In this short tutorial I'll show you how I installed it on Mac and learned the fundamentals.

Step 1: Get Homebrew if you do not already have it.

Run this command in your terminal of choice. You will be prompted for your password.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Step 2: Use Homebrew to install GnuCOBOL

brew install gnucobol

Step 3: Install the OpenCOBOLIDE

This app is incredibly buggy. I have had to force quit it several times, and eventually just used VSCode and the command line to compile and run. I am including it here anyway.

pip3 install PyQt5
pip3 install OpenCobolIDE --upgrade

NOTE: Yes, you will need the --upgrade part.

Step 4: Optionally install the `learncobol` addon in VSCode

If you are using VSCode, a nice way to learn is with the learncobol addon. Go to (https://www.rocketsoftware.com/learn-cobol)[https://www.rocketsoftware.com/learn-cobol] and register for their learn COBOL tutorials. But be forwarned: their compiler does not work well on Mac, but the combo of the learncobol VSCode addon and OpenCobolIDE works well to learn COBOL.

Step 5: Compile and run the obligatory "Hello World" application

A good way to make sure you have everything set up correctly is to compile and run the familiar "Hello World" application. Open an editor and put this in matching the format as best as you can:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. HELLO-WORLD.
       DATA DIVISION.
       FILE SECTION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       MAIN-PROCEDURE.
            DISPLAY "Hello world"
            STOP RUN.

You actually need all those spaces, (not tabs). COBOL division and section headers, paragraph headers, level indicators, declaratives, and end declaratives need to start in the 8th-11th column. Everything you learn here can be applied to most of the COBOL dialects that you will encounter.

Once you have that saved in a file called hello.cbl or something, open a terminal to that directory, and input the following:

cobc -x -o hello-world ./hello.cbl

The -x tells the COBOL compiler you want to build an executable, the -o tells it to output the executable as hello-world. Once that is done you should be able to run the new executable with ./hello-world and that is it.

Enjoy!