Native Inspect Manual (H06.04+)

Native Inspect Manual—528122-005

3-1

Using Native Inspect With COBOL

Programs

This section describes concepts and additional details for using Native Inspect with

COBOL programs.

How Native Inspect Finds Data Items

Native Inspect follows COBOL scoping rules for finding data items specified in Native

Inspect commands. That is, Native Inspect attempts to find the item in the current

program unit (the program unit where execution is currently suspended). If Native

Inspect cannot find the item in the current program unit, it looks in containing program

units if the data item is declared GLOBAL.

In nested program units, a data item declared in an inner program unit can “hide” a

global data item with the same name that is also declared in an outer program unit.

When execution is suspended in the inner program unit, the only way to access the

item in the outer program unit is to change the currently selected stack frame to the

stack frame containing the outer item.

Handling of SOURCE and COPY Directives

Displaying Lines Included by SOURCE and COPY Directives

Native Inspect does not merge the source lines from SOURCE and COPY directives

into the source listed for a program unit. Therefore, when you enter a list filename

command, only the lines in the specified file are shown, and not the lines included by

any SOURCE or COPY directives in the file. To list any source lines that were copied

by a nested SOURCE or COPY directive, you must enter a separate list command for

the file named in the directive.

Setting Breakpoints at Lines Included by SOURCE and COPY

Directives

In a COBOL program that contains SOURCE and COPY directives, identical line

numbers can occur within a program unit. If, in a break command, you specify a line

number with no qualification, Native Inspect sets a breakpoint at each instance of that

line number. To set a breakpoint at a particular instance of a line number, you must

qualify the line number with the name of the containing file, using the

filename:line-number notation.