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 45

Port STCK functions from PL/I to COBOL

Hello. COBOL provides intrinsic functions to get date in time in formatted format. I need to also get the STCK (and/or STCKE) values in bin/hexadecimal. PL/I has these features : pex PLISTCK(val) to put the STCK value in val. Is it possible to por...
6 months ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 1 Future consideration

Option to prevent inadvertent use of LINKAGE-SECTION data items prior to establishing addressability

In a COBOL program, the LINKAGE SECTION is used to describe data structures that are made available to this program from another program or method. Addressability to these data structures are established in a variety of ways, such as via reference...
over 1 year ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 9 Future consideration

Allow OMITTED parameters in function identifier.

The COBOL 2002 standard allows for the OMITTED keyword to be specified as a parameter to a function identifier. This should be allowed for Enterprise COBOL. It could be implemented in a manner similar to specifying OMITTED as a parameter in a CALL...
4 months ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 4 Future consideration

JSON PARSE error details

JSON PARSE error handling improvements - Expose Parse messages to application code. We continue to struggle with problem resolution when specific use cases cause unexpected results from web service calls, resulting in Parse failures. Displaying th...
8 months ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 1 Future consideration

COBOL: Catch use of wrong index

Case: TS006008227Summary: The COBOL compiler should warn when the wrong index is used Details: In COBOL the data division INDEXED BY phrase is used to associate an index with a table. “A table without an INDEXED BY phrase can be referred to throug...
over 3 years ago in COBOL Compilers 3 Future consideration

new function for current timestamp

I would a cobol function to retrieve the current system timestamp with the higher possible precision like STCKE or Db2 SET CURRENT TIMESTAMP. Optionally a parameter could drive the required precision of the timestamp (same way as the current times...
about 4 years ago in COBOL Compilers 15 Future consideration

Adopt Dataname Picture and Usage in Mainframe COBOL

It would be extremely useful, and would help to prevent logic errors, if the COBOL compiler would allow a dataname to adopt the PICTURE and USAGE from another dataname at compile time. At execution time, logic errors (and even abends) can occur in...
almost 4 years ago in COBOL Compilers 3 Future consideration

Provide a FUNCTION MAX-LENGTH for the maximum length of self-referencing ODO structures

If a linkage section structure contains one or more ODO items resident in the structure itself, Enterprise COBOL provides no means of determining the maximum length of such a structure for allocation purposes, short of a numeric literal copied fro...
over 1 year ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 5 Future consideration

Add recommended data types to command documentation

When reviewing code, we try to teach the developers to use the right data type for the right purpose - use a binary index, don't do calculations with display numerics, etc. It would be very helpful if they didn't have to figure for themselves whic...
about 4 years ago in COBOL Compilers 2 Future consideration

Display the names of libraries that store declarations of tables and variables in generated DB2 precompiler and coprocessor listing.

DCLGEN is used to produce declarations for tables, views, and variables for C, COBOL, or PL/I program, these declarations can be included later in the program via: EXEC SQL INCLUDE member-name END-EXEC. where member-name is the name of the data se...
4 months ago in COBOL Compilers / z/OS 1 Future consideration