Release of GnuCOBOL 3.1.2

[Simon Sobisch]

Hello!

Three years (and multiple release candidates without a final version) 
after GnuCOBOL 2.2 the GnuCOBOL developers are proud to announce the 
formal release of GnuCOBOL 3.1.2.


What is GnuCOBOL
================

GnuCOBOL is a free, modern COBOL compiler.
It translates COBOL into intermediate C and compiles the code using a 
native C compiler (preferably GCC, but not limited to it).

More information about GnuCOBOL can be found at
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnucobol/


Noteworthy changes
==================

The amount of features are too much to note, but you can skip over the 
attached NEWS file to investigate them, here are some of the highlights:

Huge improvements for compatibility to different COBOL dialects, better 
error handling and adjustable exceptions per COBOL 2002; more modern 
format for diagnostic messages (especially useful when used in an 
integrated development environment possible in Emacs, Vim, VSCodium and 
others) and improved source-level debugging.

Shipped with 3.0-rc1 already:
  XML GENERATE and JSON GENERATE
  REPORT WRITER module
  sparse and split key support

GnuCOBOL 3.x keeps full compatibility to GnuCOBOL 2.2, you can therefore 
use old COBOL modules without recompile, if needed,


Getting the Software
====================

Official source kits can be downloaded from
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnucobol/
but we suggest to use a mirror a nearby mirror for higher
download bandwidth:
  https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnucobol

NEWS
Description: Text document