GnuCOBOL on cygwin/Win32 (was: more intel thanks wrong format exe)

[Simon Sobisch]

Hi Jim and welcome to GnuCOBOL!

Am 09.10.2024 um 14:52 schrieb Jim McNamara:
> > cd /usr/local/bin
> $> ls
> blob.cob  blob.dll  blob.exe  cobc.exe  cob-config  cobcrun.exe  cygcob-4.dll  
> platinfo

While it would be quite uncommon to place COBOL sources to 
/usr/local/bin, it can make sense to place COBOL executables there (if 
you want them to be callable from everywhere in your PATH, with the 
guess that this path is in there).

As cygwin has a global replacement of the "lib" prefix with "cyg" 
(that's the reason you don't have libcob-4.dll [note: the 4 is the ABI 
number, not the version number]) that additional file is kind of 
expected as well.
It does so because "cyg" libraries are always linked to cygwin1.dll and 
are not intended to be called from non-cygwin libraries / binaries.

> $> ./blob.exe
> bash: ./blob.exe: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

I _guess_ you've compiled that with `cobc` and just named it ".exe", so 
it is a shared object with an executable name?

Per the distributed manual:

cobc -x blob.cob    (implies "-o blob.exe" on cygwin)
to create an executable - note that this cannot have a LINKAGE but must 
parse its parameters (if any are planned) different.
Execute it with ./blob.exe or ./blob (or, with the assumption that this 
folder is in PATH with "blob")

cobc blob.cob       (implies "-m" and together "-o blob.dll" on cygwin)
to generate a shared object, which you either CALL from a different 
COBOL program or with the module runner (note: the remark on parameters 
applies identical)

Execute it with    cobcrun blob   (note: "blob" must then also match the 
program-id of the program!)

Apart from the program-id you'd then either have /usr/local/bin as 
current path or set it into the COBOL runtime library path, for example 
inline:
COB_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/bin cobcrun blob

or   cobcrun -M /usr/local/bin/blob blob   (the later is the program-id)


> Hi looks like i grabbed wrong source it ended in .tar.gz thought I was good to 
> go?
>
> filename: gnucobol-3.2.tar.gz

No, the source was completely fine.

But if you are no general cygwin user, which seems to be the case given 
the cygcob question, then cygwin is likely not the environment for you 
and you may prefer to use something like "full-featured and fast" WSL or 
MSYS2 (in both cases you can either build from the same source or use 
the distribution provided binaries) or directly use Win32 (x86/s64) 
binaries from one of

https://arnoldtrembley.com/GnuCOBOL.htm
  (Mingw or MSYS2 MINGW32 or MINGW64 based)

https://superbol.eu/en/developers/windows-aio-3.2/
  (MSYS2 MINGW64 based)


Welcome again :-)
Simon