<P>Note:  This file has moved to <A HREF="/notablog">notablog</A>.</P>

XML and Copybooks

     A few years back I posted on an XML mailing list, asking for
information about tools to convert cobol copybook data to XML format
automatically.  I didn't have much luck at the time, but since then
I've received about a dozen or more followup messages from various
people.  Some of them were also looking for information, others had
news of tools they thought might be helpful.  Eventually I started
keeping track of them and put together a stock reply, and later I put
the stock reply into a web page - this.

     At the time there were no tools that did what I needed. We never
got sufficient management buy-in to spend enough time building a
general tool.  However, since then IBM has come out with several XML
tools and other companies probably have products as well.  I no longer
work with Cobol data, however, so I haven't been following the topic.

     I'd suggest you start by looking at IBM's XMLExtender product and
search from there.  

     Let's do a little google search on "xml" and "copybook" and see
what comes up.

     Javaworld has a short article on how to build a one-off
copybook-to-XML converter:

     http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2000/jw-1006-legacy.html

     BEA Weblogic, one of the leading java application server engine
providers, also has for sale JAM, Java Adapter for Mainframe, which
includes a tool named eGen which "provide the ability to generate both
XML Schema and XML DTD documents for a given COBOL copybook record
definition."

     http://edocs.bea.com/elink/elinkjam/v411/jamug/xml.htm

     BEA also has XML/Non-XML Translator, which promises some ability
to import copybooks and generate a translator to translate them to
XML:

     http://edocs.bea.com/wlxt/10/wlxtug/fmtdef.htm#1007117

     Oh, yeah, here's a repy I got much too late, suggesting a product
called XML Convert.  Here's the XML-dev archive of the reply:

http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/xml-dev-Jun-1999/0282.html

     The specific URLs he suggested were www.unidex.com for their XML
Convert product and www.metagenix.com, for their metagenix product.

     Another person contacted me in January, 2001 about copybooks and
later commented:

    "Thanks for the reply!  I found XML Convert using a web search
     (the same search that pulled up your old post), and it looks like
     it may solve my problem."

     Another poster, on the XSL list, suggests www.xml4cobol.de.

     wwww.datajunction.com claims to have some XML/cobol stuff; the
best XML geek I know gives datajunction's XML junction tool a very
high recommendation.

     http://www.comptramatics.com/araneum/reengineering-text.html
claims to be able to automagically generate java objects representing
Cobol copybooks.

     I also received this reply at one point:
 
> I am very late, but found your question regarding XML and Cobol on
> xml-dev.
> 
> We are offering such a utility. Attached you will find the current
> documentation. You can view our marketing flyer at
> http://www.maas.de/xml4cobol/dokumente/XML4cobol_english.pdf .
> 
> Best regards
>
> Thomas Funke
> Managing Director
> 
> +49 711 77917 33
> Maas High Tech Software GmbH
> http://www.maas.de/
> http://www.xml4cobol.de/ http://www.afp2web.de/

     Hope this is some help to you.

Steven J. Owens
puff@darksleep.com