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IBM Z Open Editor: File issues here!
https://ibm.github.io/zopeneditor-about
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IBM Z® Open Editor

IBM Z Open Editor is an extension for Visual Studio Code that provides language support for the IBM® Enterprise COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, REXX, and (all new!) JCL languages.

Go here for the full Documentation online.

This extension provides language support for the IBM Enterprise programming languages for z/OS®. It supports COBOL v6.4, PL/I v6.1, High Level Assembler for z/OS 3.1, TSO/E REXX, and z/OS MVS Job Control Language (JCL). This also includes capabilities for embedded statements in COBOL and PL/I for CICS 6.2, IMS 15.1.0 and SQL DB2 for z/OS 12.1. Earlier versions of any of these components will also work. IBM Z Open Editor realizes its language support by implementing fully functional language servers together with additional editor enhancements that enable IBM Z developers to utilize features such as

Note, that for Job Control Language (JCL), the extension currently only provides

To learn more about the IBM Z Open Editor extension's capabilities, we suggest that you walk through our documentation and try it with the example repository provided on GitHub.

To interact with z/OS, this extension also automatically co-installs the Zowe Explorer VS Code Extension. This extension can be used to edit COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, REXX, and JCL files opened on z/OS MVS™ and USS using the Zowe extension's Data Sets and USS views. It can even run JCL jobs via right-click and let's you download and browse job spool files.

IBM Z Open Editor v4.0.0 introduced advanced capabilities that go beyond program editing. These are at the moment preprocessor support for COBOL, a new Web view built on top of Zowe Explorer that displays z/OS resources such as data sets and jobs in a sortable table, a new DBB user build VS Code Problems view integration, HLASM custom macros support. All users get a 60-day evaluation trial for these advanced capabilities. After that, the advanced capabilities will require an IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition license. However, the language editing capabilities are still free and will be maintained and enhanced as always. See the IBM Documentation with details.

Table of contents

Privacy notice for feedback

The IBM Z Open Editor is provided free of charge, but we ask you to provide us feedback via the various means available such as submitting an issue in our GitHub repository, providing review in the VS Code Marketplace as well as keeping the built-in telemetry and crash reports enabled.

This editor uses Microsoft VS Code's Telemetry solution that collects telemetry data, which is used to help understand how to improve the product. While we appreciate the insights this data provides, we also know that not everyone wants to send usage data and you can disable telemetry as described in Disable Telemetry Reporting. You can also read IBM's General Privacy Statement to learn more about our policies.

This current release of IBM Z Open Editor will collect anonymous data for the following events:

Such events are logged with the following information:

Prerequisites

Review the IBM Z Open Editor License Agreement and Third Party Notices before downloading.

Here are the prerequisites for installing this extension in Visual Studio Code:

If you are looking for some COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, REXX or JCL sample code that you can use to explore the editor features then you can use samples that we maintain on Github. Assuming that you have Git installed, create a work directory somewhere on your machine and clone the sample repository:

git clone https://github.com/IBM/zopeneditor-sample.git

Then once you finished installing the IBM Z® Open Editor extension open the directory zopeneditor-sample using the File > Open... menu.

Configuring Java

The COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, and REXX language servers utilized by IBM Z Open Editor were implemented using the Java programming language. Therefore, a Java Runtime is required to be available via settings or the program path to start in VS Code. The IBM Z Open Editor extension utilizes VS Code user settings to configure which and how Java should be used. These settings allow you to select the specific installation of Java to pick, in case you have several installations, as well as set parameters such as how much memory you want the language servers to use.

Selecting the Java installation to use

Before starting a language server the language server clients in the IBM Z Open Editor VS Code extension try looking in different places to find a matching Java installation. They will look in the following places in this specific order and pick the first Java installation they can find that is at least Version 17 and 64-Bit. If it finds a Java that fails the test against these criteria it will continue searching:

  1. The zopeneditor.JAVA_HOME VS Code user setting.
  2. The java.home VS Code user setting.
  3. The JAVA_HOME environment variable.
  4. The PATH defined for the environment in which Z Open Editor runs (i.e. you default Windows or MacOS path)
  5. A typical platform-specific location. For example, on MacOS it will execute the /usr/libexec/java_home -V and on Windows the where java.exe commands to locate a valid Java installation.

As you can see user settings always take precedence over the other options listed, which enables you to specify a different Java version for IBM Z Open Editor than the default on your computer in case you have installed multiple version. If you used the recommended Visual Studio Code for Java Installer the java.home user setting was set by this installer. Also note, that the methods at the end of the list require a significant amount of time as they are executing programs on your system. To improve startup times you should consider user settings as they provide the best startup performance.

If Java cannot be located check the VS Code Output view's Z Open Editor tab for any error and try to fix the problem by either setting the JAVA_HOME environment variable or create an entry in your VS Code user settings.

To define a user setting use the Preferences > Settings menu and either locate the setting in the graphical editor under IBM Z Open Editor or edit the setting json file directly by adding an entry as follows using an absolute path name to the Java installation directory.

On Mac:

"zopeneditor.JAVA_HOME": "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk17/Contents/Home"

On Windows:

"zopeneditor.JAVA_HOME": "C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk17"

Configuring the Java memory allocation

By default, the language server clients that start the language servers for COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, and REXX allocate a maximum of 512 MB of memory for each. In other words, they start using much less memory in the beginning, but you might run out of memory when working on large program files; or your computer might not support such a large amount of memory in the first place. To have more flexibility in how much memory the language servers are allowed to allocate, the following VS Code Setting is provided to specify the maximum value. When you use both COBOL and PL/I, you need to double the amount specified.

"zopeneditor.server.memoryAllocation": 640

Language Server Protocol capability examples

The following animations just give you glimpse of the capabilities available in IBM Z Open Editor. We are showing you different examples using different programming languages, but most of the features shown here are available for all four languages: COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, JCL, as well as REXX.

Outline view explorer

You can use this view to:

Here is an example showing an Outline View for an High Level Assembler program listing and providing rapid navigation to CSECT, DSECT, and MACRO instructions:

Outline view search

Searching for identifiers within the outline by pressing Ctrl+Shift+O (PC) or Cmd+Shift+O (Mac) within the Editor window.

Code and variable completion

When you start typing a command, a selection list of commands and code snippets are displayed automatically or by typing Ctrl+Space depending on your preferences settings. This feature also works for variable names defined in the program.

There is also code completion and documentation hovers for High Level Assembler commands and variables. Here is an example showing how new commands are added and how the hover can be used afterwards to check back on the syntax:

Declaration hovers

To see the working storage definition or DCL definition and the parent group of a variable or a paragraph name, move your mouse cursor over to the variable or paragraph name.

Peek definition

Click on a variable or a paragraph name, right-click for menu, and choose Peek Definition. This opens a CodeLens box that shows where the variable or paragraph was defined in the code. If you use the keyboard shortcut Alt+F12 (Windows) or Option+F12 (Mac), the variable or paragraph name is only clicked once before the keyboard shortcuts are pressed. Double-click any result to go to that location in the file.

Preview copybooks and include files

To preview the contents of a copybook or included file, move your mouse cursor over the copybook name in a COPY statement in COBOL or %INCLUDE in PL/I. To open the file in a separate editor, press Ctrl+Click (Windows) or Cmd+Click (Mac). If you have Zowe CLI installed, you can define a search path to resolve copybooks over the network against your remote MVS data sets or even USS directories (COBOL only at the moment).

Peek references

Select a variable or a paragraph name, right-click for menu, and choose Peek References or use shortcut Shift+F12 (Windows and Mac). Double-click any result in the CodeLens box to go to that location in the file.

User Build

The User Build feature helps COBOL, PL1, and HLASM developers to leverage IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB) toolkit right from their local VS Code or Eclipse Che development environment. A developer who is working on a COBOL, PL1, or HLASM applications can run a User Build to compile and link programs before the code is ready to be exposed to the repository for others to use. With User Build, you can compile your program without having to perform commits or pushes.

User Build automatically does the following when you click to run a build:

User Build allows developers to do their zOS development locally using modern tools without context switching.

To learn more see the IBM Documentation.

Advanced Capabilities

IBM Z Open Editor v4.0.0 is the first release to introduce a set of all-new enterprise-level advanced capabilities. While the core Z Open Editor continues to provide full language support for COBOL, PL/I, REXX, and HLASM for free, this release adds capabilities for enterprise-level development use cases that go beyond program editing. They cover capabilities that you would typically only find in our commercial editing solutions such as IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE). With this release, we started adding these capabilities to Z Open Editor under the same licensing terms as IDzEE and a 60-day evaluation license. IDzEE customers can unlock the features by using RSE API or separately distributed activation kits. For more information, see IBM Documentation.

Local preprocessor support for COBOL

Run a preprocessor on your local workstation driven by a new ZAPP profile type and then continue editing with full syntax checking (except for the preprocessor statements) and automatically rerunning the preprocessor at save. Compare the preprocessor generated code with your code side-by-side. Support for running the preprocessor on z/OS will be added in a future release.

z/OS Resources table

An all new feature rich Web view that extends Zowe Explorer with a sortable table. Gain insights into your jobs and data sets by listing, filtering, and sorting on many available properties.

Advanced Dependency-Based user build error reporting

User build logs are automatically downloaded, parsed, and presented in the editor's Problems view showing descriptions and error codes. Navigate to errors in your code with a mouse click in the Problems view to review and fix your issue and then rerun your build.