cobol2json

parser to generate a JSON object from a COBOL copybook

Objective

Even today many companies use Customer Information Control System(CICS) as a backend. CICS uses cobol copybooks as data elements to store data. But nowadays most software systems use formats such as XML, JSON. These data formats are easy to use and well understood by all. So I decided to develop a module that converts a COBOL copybook to a JSON data format. CICS accepts inputs in the form of a buffer and returns a string buffer. A buffered string will be output of this module. So, module can be used to automate element mapping in APIs

Input

A cobol copybook can be converted into XML data format using Qt creator. XML file acts as input to our system.

Processing

I used 'xml2js' module to convert xml file to a json object. While converting to json object, all '-' in attribute names are converted to '_' for ease of traversing json object. Then we traverse this object and along the way create string buffer with input data values. String buffer can act as input for CICS Transaction server.

Output

String buffer with input data values.

Tips for execution

In terminal or cmd, run following script node executor.js

Limitations

Module is still in preliminary phase. It doesn't handle table('OCCURS') feature of cobol. Modifications are required to improve it's performance. You are free to contribute to my project. All suggestions are welcome.