Packages for Windows
You have a number of items on the menu to choose from. The first is a self-extracting executable that provides standalone support for GnuCOBOL and the debugger without requiring the MSYS2 environment.
That’s followed by a .zip version of that same file, useful for situations for users who can’t run that kind of executable.
There is a .zst installation package for the 64-bit
UCRT64 of the MSYS2 Linux-like
environment for Windows.
Standalone GnuCOBOL-3.2 plus CBL-GDB for Windows.
The self-extracting executable creates a standalone directory that includes the GnuCOBOL compiler and the CBL-GDB debugging extensions.
Some versions of anti-virus protection prevent the self-extracting installer executable from running. Temporarily disabling the anti-virus protection has been known to allow the installation to proceeed.
Users with 7-zip installed on their computers can right-click the .exe and use 7-zip to extract the gnucobol32 or gnucobol64 folder.
Alternatively, you can download the gnucobol64 folder as a .ZIP file:
Running the self-extractor.
When launched, the self-extractor will ask you where you want the executables installed. It will offer to modify your environment for ease of use of the package. If you turn down that offer, it will tell you the location of the batch file you’ll need to run to set up the environment on a per-session basis.
If you don’t set up permanent environment variables, the compiler is made usable by issuing this command:
c:\gnucobol64\bin\cobenv.cmdUsage
The GnuCOBOL
User’s Guide explains the normal use of cobc and the
libraries.
The COBOLworx walkthrough of the debugging package explains the use of the CBL-GDB debugging extensions.
CBL-GDB for the MSYS2 environment in Windows.
This is one of those deals where if you don’t know what it means, you don’t need it. Once you become familiar with MSYS2, it will make more sense. But, in general, if you are a Windows user who wants to be able to compile COBOL programs, the self-extractor (or the matching .zip file) is what you want.
Users who have msys2 installed can download this package for the UCRT64 environment::
After downloading a .zst package, and while running in the MSYS2
environment, use pacman -U <filename>.zst to install
it. Doing so will install the CBL-GDB binary files into /ucrt64/bin
By itself, that package can’t do anything useful; you have to have GnuCOBOL version 3.2 installed as well, so that you can compile something for the CBL-GDB debugger to debug. The packages do specify GnuCOBOL as a prerequisite requirement, and pacman will try to find them. If for some reason pacman isn’t able to find them, the package can be downloaded from msys2.org