Skip to Main Content
IBM Z Software


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Z Software products. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

ADD A NEW IDEA

COBOL Compilers

Showing 274

SSRANGE suboption to check for a modified length resulting in a negative length

A new SSRANGE suboption is needed that should be useable also in production.This suboption should create extra checking code only if a "modified reference" (that modifies the default length of a variable) involves a variable value. In this case th...
over 7 years ago in COBOL Compilers 4 Not under consideration

Separate NUMCHECK's MSG/ABD suboptions by type

We're trying to ease our developers into NUMCHECK, and have mostly got PAC through, using the parameter NUMCHECK(NOZON,PAC,NOBIN,ABD) unless specifically requested to downgrade to NUMCHECK(NOZON,PAC,NOBIN,MSG) for a temporary duration (until the c...
over 5 years ago in COBOL Compilers 2 Not under consideration

A new rule to RULES(NOLAXPERF)

When indexing into strings, there should be a warning when not using optimal variables for the index variables.
over 4 years ago in COBOL Compilers 1 Future consideration

COBOL-Program with no goback or Exit Programs

Writing a COBOL program without any GOBACK, EXIT PROGRAM or STOP RUN will produce a runtime error. It's necessary to get a warning by the compiler if none of these "BR14" are written
about 11 years ago in COBOL Compilers 6 Not under consideration

31Char long COBOL words (current 30)

COBOL words (variable names...) can only be 30 characters.In ISO Standard it is limited to 31 bytes.Please enlarge the allowed length of such names.
about 9 years ago in COBOL Compilers 5 Not under consideration

Enterprise COBOL - MDECK(NOCOMPILE) must produce a cross-reference COPY/BASIS report

A COBOL program compiled with the MDECK(NOCOMPILE) option for the purpose of expanding COPYBOOKs, handling text replacements, and incidentally handling conditional compilation directives, produces a listing that is limited to the list of options f...
over 3 years ago in COBOL Compilers 5 Future consideration

Enterprise Cobol - ON EXCEPTION clause for SET procedure-function-pointer TO ENTRY entry-point

To avoid an abend at runtime, the instruction "SET procedure-or-function-pointer TO ENTRY entry-point" should have an "ON EXCEPTION" clause, as is the case for the instruction "CALL".The instruction "SET TO ENTRY" causes a loading of the program w...
almost 5 years ago in COBOL Compilers 2 Future consideration

Enterprise COBOL V6+ - Cross reference for compilation variable

We have developed a COBOL framework based on program skeletons and COPYBOOKs which is particularly rich and allows adaptation to the context of the program. This framework uses many conditional compilation variables and many tests on these conditi...
over 2 years ago in COBOL Compilers 2 Future consideration

z/OS 2.1 JCL-Variables GET/SET via COBOL Program

It would be nice, if a COBOL Program could set or get an JCL-Variable, because of exploiting the new z/OS V2.1 Variable Handling.This could bring some benefit for larger Batch-Applications with many Steps and Jobs.
over 9 years ago in COBOL Compilers 2 Not under consideration

Enterprise Cobol V6+ - >>NOP for >>EVALUATE directive

In addition to our RFE 145885, we suggest the provision of a directive that does no action to be associated with a >>WHEN condition in a >>EVALUATE directive. It could be a >>NOP or >>CONTINUE directive. It is sometimes eas...
over 3 years ago in COBOL Compilers 3 Not under consideration