With Enterprise COBOL V 5.1.1, users can specify the Maximum Program Complexity Factor (MAXPCF) option with more flexibility with regards to compile time. To be more specific, users can set a threshold on the complexity of the program that a compiler should attempt to optimize. Before V 5.1.1, compilation may exceed the available memory resources or take excessive time to compile, when programs are very large.  Now users can decide how much compile-time cost they are willing to incur for optimization of programs:

• Users can lower the MAXPCF value to disable optimization for larger,complex programs and hence consume less system memory and compile-time.
• Users can raise the MAXPCF value to attempt to optimize larger complex programs at the cost of longer compile-times.

If you specify MAXPCF(0), no limit is enforced on the complexity of the program, and the MAXPCF option has no effect. If you specify MAXPCF(n) and n is not zero, when the program complexity factor exceeds n, any specification of OPTIMIZE(1) or OPTIMIZE(2) is reset to OPTIMIZE(0), and a warning message is generated. If the COBOL source file contains a sequence of source programs (a batch compile), the MAXPCF limit is applied on a per program basis.

Please note that if you attempt to optimize a program larger than the default threshold by raising the value of MAXPCF to n where n is greater than the default, or by specifying MAXPCF(0), the compiler might take excessive time to compile or fail to compile because of insufficient memory. For more details, please see https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SS6SG3_5.1.1/com.ibm.cobol511.ent.doc/PGandLR/abouthow.html?sc=SS6SG3_latest