3.2 XFD Files

The compiler creates an XFD for each indexed file in the compiled program when you specify the "-Fx" compile-time option. XFDs are fully portable, and thus no recompilation is necessary if you change hardware. The compiler option "-Fxa" causes the generation of XFDs for indexed, relative and sequential files for use with international character translation only. The compiler option "-Fx3" generates version 3 XFD files for backwards compatibility with older versions of the runtime (indexed files only).

See Chapter 5 in Book 1, User's Guide of the ACUCOBOL-GT compiler documentation for details on how the XFD files are generated from the COBOL program's FDs.

Creating XFD files at compile time offers two significant advantages:

• Any changes made to the file definitions are automatically included in the data dictionaries when the program is recompiled.

• The effects of all compile-time options, COPY REPLACING, source-code control lines, and data layout compiler flags (-D...) are reflected correctly in the XFDs.

More:

3.2.1 Understanding How the Database Table Is Formed

3.2.2 Defaults Used in XFD Files

3.2.3 Summary of Dictionary Fields

3.2.4 Identical Field Names

3.2.5 Long Field Names

3.2.6 Naming the XFD