Cobol 2.8 on Alpha VMS 8.2 - undefined symbol dcob$image_init

[Teresa King_2]

I've installed COBOL 2.8 on Alpha VMS 8.2 but the IVP & other cobol programs generate the following warning when linking: 1 undefined symbol DCOB$IMAGE_INIT. Any suggestions on why this is happening and how it can be corrected.

The undefined symbol problem does not occur when installing cobol 2.8 on VMS 7.3-2

Thanks

[Arch_Muthiah]

hi,

The V2.8 HP COBOL RTL is included with the COBOL kits on OpenVMS Alpha. You must use this updated RTL before installing V2.8 complier.

I knew why don't you get any "undefined symbol" error in your OVMS V7.3-2, because V2.8 RTL was bundled with OVMS 7.3-2.

But as I am not sure the same with the OVMS V8.2, I would suggest you to make sure the COBRTL version in OVMS V8.2 is latest, by

$ ANA/image DEC$COBRTL -- to check the COBRTL version exist in your OpenVMS V8.2.

Note down COBRTL version#, then REMOVE the existing COBRTL, and compiler. Then INSTAL the COBRTL from your COBOL kits and again check COBRTL version. The keep the latest COBRTL version and INSTAL cob compiler again and try to compile-link.

Hope this will solve your problem.

Archunan

[Teresa King_2]

I should mention that I did install COBRTL-V0208-670B-1 prior to installing COBOL. However, when doing so I received messages for all files saying that the version in the Kit was older than what was on disk and the file would not be overwritten. I uninstalled both COBOL & the COBRTL & reinstalled them - RTL first but received the same messages. The version number for DEC$COBRTL.EXE is V2.8-775.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

[with help from Don B, through HP internal cobol note 3726.0]

It appears this problem is triggered by an attempt to install a COBOL RTL kit on OpenVMS Alpha V8.2.

Just to summarize the situation with COBOL RTL kits and
DEC$COBRTL versions:

V2.8-670A kit (for OpenVMS Alpha V6.2 through V7.1-2)
V2.8-670B kit (for OpenVMS Alpha V7.1-2 through V7.3-1)
V2.8-670 (ships with OpenVMS Alpha V7.3-2)
V2.8-775 (ships with OpenVMS Alpha V8.2)

No COBOL RTL kit (V2.8 and earlier) should be installed on any version of OpenVMS Alpha afer V7.3-1. If a customer mistakenly tries to install a COBOL V2.8 RTL kit on a version of OpenVMS Alpha after V7.3-1, PCSI is supposed to sort out the issues, but that does not appear to be happening.
repl
To fix the LINK problem, you should drop back to the older STARLET.OLB. If they don't have that file, then you can try extract the problem module from an other system.
$libr/ext=cob_image_init/out=cob_image_init v82_clean_system:[syslib]starlet.olb
$libr/repl cob_image_init sys$library:starlet.olb

If this remains a problem I would recommend involving HP support.

hth,
Hein.

[Teresa King_2]

Thanks Hein. That took care of the problem. We assumed the 7.1-2 and higher reference in the documentation also included 8.2 which got us into trouble.

Thanks so much for your assistance.

Teresa

[Teresa King_2]

Hein's information resolved the problem.

[Adrian Parker]

Hi,

We have installed the COBRTL kit as well as the compiler kit assuming '7.1-2 and higher' included 8.2 systems as well, and now have this same problem.

So i'm going to try the extract / replace suggestion to try and fix the link problem, but is this a complete fix? Does this return the runtime environment to the same state prior to the RTL installation, or could we potentially hit other problems?

Thanks and regards,

Adrian

[Verne Britton]

Hein had an excellent reply, except for one little thing :-)

The insert command should be:

$libr/repl sys$library:starlet.olb cob_image_init

(the library name comes first and the module name comes later)

... just had this exact problem (after a 6hr upgrade starting at midnight) and was very grateful for the insight from this article !!

For me, re-installing the RTL (as a COV posting mentioned) did not fix the problem ... the manual extract and insert did.

Verne