[Info-vax] cobol.vim for VIM

[Michael Austin]

Hein RMS van den Heuvel wrote:
> Years ago "Mark Vilstrup Svanesteen" wrote..
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Date: May 3 2005, 7:55 am
> Subject: cobol.vim for VIM
> To: comp.os.vms
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I downloaded VIM6.3, but it seems impossible to get it to display
> COBOL-code
> correctly. I've been googling all day, but I can't find anything that
> really
> works.
> VIM places red lines all over my COBOL-code. If I try:
> 
> :hi error none
> 
> , the red lines disappear allright, but now words are only partly
> colored.
> This happens every 6. line I believe.
> 
> I've also tried putting:
> 
> let cobol_legacy_code=1
> and
> unlet cobol_legacy_code
> 
> in my .vimrc and .gvimrc - files.
> 
> Maybe its in my .vimrc-files
> ---------------------------------------------------
> 
> But I could not reply to that, hence a new topic.
> 
> I just tried VIM (7.0 + syntax 7.2) on COBOL and the color
> highlighting was very ugly to begin with. The cobol syntax really
> wants the 'ANSII' style layout where the columns matter a lot and a
> space is a space, not a tab. Not the largely free-format we VMS folks
> are used to.
> 
> I could make it 'almost bareable' with a quick HACK.
> I do not claim to understand this, and the solution is by no means
> complete or perfect,  but it is a lot better than it was.
> Basically replaced the markers for 4 - 6 space by 1 or 2 [spaces OR
> tab]
> 
> -------
> syn match   cobolMarker     "^\%([       ]\{,1\}[^       ]\)\@=.\{,2}"
> nextgroup=@cobolStart
> syn match   cobolSpace      "^[  ]"  nextgroup=@cobolStart
> syn match   cobolAreaA      "[   ]\{1\}"  contained
> nextgroup=@cobolAreaA, at cobolAreaAB
> syn match   cobolAreaB      "[   ]\{2,\}\|- *" contained
> nextgroup=@cobolAreaB, at cobolAreaAB
> syn match   cobolComment    "[/*C].*$" contained
> -------
> The pieces of string above looking like "[  ]" contain not two spaces,
> but a space and a tab.
> 
> But... it still is a mess. Specifically the KEYWORDS defined with
> CONTAINING are recognized in any piece of string, and not only when
> started and ended on some word boundary.
> 
> So take  piece of code like; PERFORM 41000_CLOSE_ALL_FILES ...
> There 41000 is highlighted in RED (constant !?), CLOSE and ALL in
> YELLOW (keywords) and FILES in white for simple variable name. Yuck!
> 
> If anyone has tweaked a COBOL.VIM for use with OpenVMS Cobol, then I'd
> love to try it!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Hein.
> 
> 

Does anyone know what ever happened to LSE?  There was also a COBOL code 
generator IIRC...  I learned COBOL using these tools... well, good 
enough that I could read it and attend a Rdb SQL class :)