This is a free software COBOL source code repository.

As a matter of principle, the programs we host here must be free
software; each must carry a free license.  To avoid uncertainty,
each program should state its licensing with clear license notices
in the source files.  We limit our hosting to GPL-compatible
licenses so as not to interfere with linking with other programs
that are covered by the GNU GPL.

See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses for a list of licenses.

Enjoy exploring.

If you want to contribute here or have a question about existing contributions leave us a message via SourceForge, forum "contributions" at https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/discussion/contrib/

A ticket system for bug reports and feature or support requests can be found at https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/_list/tickets

Some of the contributions found here have additional download files at https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnucobol/files/contrib/

The main source code repositories for GnuCOBOL on SourceForge use Subversion, or svn for short. To take part as a contributing member you will need some form of Subversion system. There is the main command line version and quite a few graphical front ends for Subversion. TortoiseSVN comes recommended.

See http://subversion.apache.org/ for all the details.

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Install an svn client, then

svn checkout --username=sfuser svn+ssh://[email protected]/p/gnucobol/contrib/trunk gnucobol-contrib

where sfuser is your SourceForge userid, and gnucobol-contrib is your preferred local repository directory

Create a new working directory under <gnucobol-contrib>/samples (for instance localproject) or use the name assigned by Simon. He'll drop you a note when you get write permissions on where the best place in the structure to place your contribution, and the sub-directory may already be in place when you do your initial checkout.

svn add gnucobol-contrib/samples/<localproject>

Work away at the next big thing, adding any newfiles with

svn add gnucobol-contrib/samples/<localproject>/<localfile>

It might be tools instead of samples depending on the type of contribution.

Then, when ready to share, update to current, just in case

svn update
svn status

to see if you have missed marking any files for shared revision control.

Then make the commitment.

svn commit -m "commit message"

Keep up to date with

svn update

when your current working directory is <gnucobol-contrib>.

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For most GNU/Linux systems, all you will need to do is install the package.

sudo apt install subversion

or

sudo yum install subversion

other systems will use different package commands, but all are similar and the package is almost always called subversion.

For GNU/Linux, and GnuCOBOL programming in general, the command line is recommended.

For a graphical front-end, in particular Windows, TortoiseSVN is recommended, but there are other options as well.

For a GNU/Linux gui, there is a few choices, kdesvn if your desktop is KDE based, or NautilusSVN for those that use Nautilus with GNOME. A quick bing on google for "SVN client" is likely the easiest way of finding a client program that suits your particular tastes and work habits.

Anyone can checkout the tree for local use, this is what it is being built for.

Contributors will need to have write permissions provided by the GnuCOBOL management team, Simon Sobisch is in charge of the keys for this. Drop a note on the GnuCOBOL forums at

https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/discussion/contrib

and we'll get you all setup to contribute.

GnuCOBOL is a GNU free software project. The compiler is licensed under the GPL version 3 (or greater), with the libcob runtime licensed under the LGPL 3 or greater.

The compiler proper has had legal documents signed by all contributing developers to place copyrights under the ownership of the Free Software Foundation.

While the contrib/ tree has less obligation (you will keep copyrights) the project still needs to use GPL compatible or other free software licensing for these contributions. Contributions must have an explicit licensing notice to be accepted. We recommend the GNU General Public License, GPL or LGPL version 3 (or greater), but will accept other licensing, at author discretion. It's your software source, and you are free to choose, but the choice still needs to be free software compatible. The whole point of the contrib/ tree is the sharing of free COBOL software for use with GnuCOBOL or other COBOL compiler systems.

Each contribution will be vetted by other members of the project. Any security concerns or other issues raised must be immediately addressed by the contributing author, or the entry may be removed without warning, and without prejudice.

svn is the main shell command.

Most people will not need to worry about svnadmin for contributing, as the repository is already setup and well managed.

svn help provides detailed help on all of the svn sub-commands, and there are quite a few, but for normal day to day operations, most users will get by knowing three or four main svn keywords.

First you need a working directory. That starts with a checkout of the existing GnuCOBOL contrib/ tree.

SourceForge helps out here, as it gives the command to use for both ReadOnly and ReadWrite permissions.

Visit https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/contrib/HEAD/tree/ and near the top middle of the web page there is options that show RW RO and HTTP command options. Copy'n'paste a RO or RW command into a terminal to get a working copy. Or follow the sequence required for your graphical client.

For example:

svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/gnucobol/contrib/ gnucobol-contrib

is the normal ReadOnly command that is shown. This will create a working copy under your current working directory called gnucobol-contrib. You should change that last part to suit tastes.

This author uses

prompt$ cd ~/wip/contrib

to hold a local working copy of the contributions tree, but that is up to you, and has no effect on anyone outside of your local machine. In line with SVN common practice, there are then sub-directories for

branches
tags
trunk

Most of the work for contributions occurs in trunk/.

trunk/ is divided up (currently) with the following top levels at the time of writing

copyfiles  esql  ipc  README  samples  tools

And most of the work here occurs in samples/ and tools/. For most contributions, it is usually self evident which sub-directory to start in, but talk with Simon and discuss any issues if the contribution doesn't seem to fit in with the current tree structure.

Within tools/ or samples/ each developer will create a new working directory that reflects the name of the particular entry. For example, contrib/trunk/samples/tools/prothsearch/ for a set of COBOL sources that support Proth Prime searches. Within prothsearch/, Lazlo created a readme.txt that shows up on the SourceForge web pages all nicely formatted, along with a sample Makefile and win_compile.bat to demonstrate the tectonics for building the program. And the sources, as prothsearch.cob, prothtest.cob and a supporting smallprimes.cpy copy book.

Within any particular working directory, a developer is free to choose a comfortable structure, but there should be a readme along with some instructions on how to go about building the software.

After you have the structure in place, svn needs to be told that you wish to track changes and to share. From contrib/trunk/samples

svn add prothsearch

would add all of the files in Lazlo's contribution, as add is recursive. You may wish to pick and choose each file separately, if you have temporary build files that don't need or should not be under revision control, .o compiler outputs, for instance. But try and not miss any files, or they won't be distributed on check-in and people that pull from the repository won't see the files or be able to properly build your contribution.

To keep in synch, use

svn update

This command pulls any changes in the master repository into your local repo.

Please note that SVN is a distributed revision control system. That means there are three copies involved at any given time. The master repository stored on SourceForge, a local repository, and your working copy. The local repository is usally hidden in '.svn' subdirectories and any working files stay local until svn is told to check them in for sharing with the master repository.

Your local working copy is never overwritten by svn until told to do so.

If you have made edits, and then do svn update, your current working files will not be overwritten by the copy held in the master repository. Nor will anyone else see local changes until an svn commit occurs.

As each developer usually has their own sub-directory, there is very little chance of conflicting edits and very little need to worry about the complexities involved with svn merge.

But please note: if you make local changes to another developer's files, and you have write permissions, when you do an svn commit, it will also commit the changes you made to the other developer's files. Be careful when making local customizations, and if there is ever an accidental commit, you'll need to read up on svn revert.

Many thanks for contributing. Each entry, large or small, makes GnuCOBOL a better system.