COBOL

 View Only

 Problems when using the COBCPYEXT and COBOPT environment variables

Eduardo Pozos Huerta's profile image
Eduardo Pozos Huerta posted Thu April 09, 2026 01:52 AM

When I try to use these variables, I simply can’t get them to work.

In my GnuMake file, I’ve entered the following:

export COBOPT:=-q64
export COBCPYEXT:=.cpy

In the case of COBOPT, I get an error saying it doesn’t recognise -64 as a command-line option, so I assume it’s ignoring the ‘q’.

The problem with COBCPYEXT is that when I enter COPY ‘test’, I get an error saying it cannot find the file, even if they are in the same directory.

I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding the documentation or if it’s a compiler issue.

The compiler I’m using is IBM COBOL for Linux x86

I should also mention that I’m new to the community.