Run Time Language (RTL) Overview

The RTL (Run Time Language) component of the JULES system is used to represent the compiled COBOL programs in a concise form. While the RTL does not track all the COBOL program elements (such as comments) it contains enough information to accurately define all the processing elements of an executing COBOL program.

The RTL is produced by the AltCode COBOL parser. It has two formats. The external format is a text file (usually with a type extension of .rtl). This format can be loaded into an Java object hierarchy using functions found in the AltCode Java function library. The outermost object is of type RTL. It contains a list of RtlXXXX type objects where XXXX represents particular COBOL operations such as data definition (RtlDDEF) or field movement (RtlMOVE).

The RTL object contains methods to traverse the RtlXXXX objects in various ways and to inspect linkages between objects. Thus. the RTL for all CALLs in a program can be efficiently inspected. Or, the parent child relationship of fields can be obtained so that where used analysis can be performed.

The JULES production run time system uses a subset of the full RTL text for a COBOL program consisting of only the calls made back into the JULES monitor plus the related data definitions for the fields passed.

The debug version of the RTL for a program plus the RTL used during program migration for analysis of inter-dependencies consists of the entire RTL generated by the AltCode COBOL parser.

An HTML RTL object definition can be viewed by clicking here.