@John-Knox said in Cobol Copy Book:
I have a Cobol copy book which I would like to use to view data in a file.
I did a bit of searching on the web and it suggests COBOL data files are likely to be in encoded format, so binary in nature. Descriptions such as “packed-decimal, Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) or “some type of binary” given that Standard COBOL has binary fields limited by decimal values (to the size of the PICture clause).” or “from AS400, COBOL data file using EBCDIC format”.
If so then Notepad++ is definitely NOT the right application. Notepad++ is a text editor and does not understand binary or otherwise encoded files. Whilst it can allow you to view them, the underlying structure is unknown to Notepad++ so text which may appear visually together can possibly be separated by the data structures involved.
However if the data is indeed text (so assumption it is of fixed width) then there is a plugin called “Fixed Width Data Visualizer” which can be used to visualise data structures. However there is no mention specifically of cobol copy book files, so if you were to try it you would need to experiment and possibly manually add in the data structure from the copy book yourself. That means you would need to be accurate in the structure as copied into the plugin (of course).
The plugin (for 64bit Notepad++) is here
Good luck
Terry
EDIT: if you did open the COBOL data file does it seem like there is a structure to it and does it seem as though it has fixed width sections?
EDIT2: Try this link, several apps on Sourceforge which are likely to have a better chance than Notepad++