Type Compatibility of Managed COBOL with Other Managed Languages

Many managed COBOL types have a strict correspondence with managed types in other languages, such as binary-long and float-short. For those that don't have a correspondence, there are alternatives.

The following table lists the correspondence between managed COBOL types and classes and types in other managed languages.

Managed COBOL	.NET type	JVM type	C# keyword	Description
Integer types:
binary-char	System.SByte	byte	sbyte	An 8-bit signed integer Not CLS-compliant
binary-char unsigned	System.Byte		byte	An 8-bit unsigned integer
binary-short	System.Int16	short	short	A 16-bit signed integer Not CLS-compliant
binary-short unsigned	System.UInt16		ushort	A 16-bit unsigned integer
binary-long	System.Int32	int	int	A 32-bit signed integer
binary-long unsigned	System.UInt32		uint	A 32-bit unsigned integer Not CLS-compliant.
binary-double	System.Int64	long	long	A 64-bit signed integer
binary-double unsigned	System.UInt64		ulong	A 64-bit unsigned integer Not CLS-compliant
Floating point types:
float-short	System.Single	float	float	A single-precision (32-bit) floating-point number
float-long	System.Double	double	double	A double-precision (64-bit) floating-point number
Logical types:
condition-value	System.Boolean	boolean	bool	A boolean value (true or false)
Other types:
character	System.Char	char	char	A unicode (16-bit) character
decimal	System.Decimal	see JVMDECIMAL.	decimal	A 96-bit decimal value
Class objects:
object	System.Object	java.lang.Object	object	The root of the object hierarchy
string	System.String	java.lang.String	string	An immutable, fixed-length string of Unicode characters
Collection types:
list	System.Collections.Generic.IList<T>	java.util.List		An ordered collection of items
dictionary	System.Collections.Generic.IDictionary<TKey, TValue>	java.util.Map		A mapping of keys to values

Examples:

       local-storage section.
       01 aByte binary-char unsigned.
       01 aSignedByte binary-char.
       01 anInt16 binary-short.
       01 anInt32 binary-long.
       01 anInt64 binary-double.
       01 anUnsignedInt16 binary-short unsigned.
       01 anUnsignedInt32 binary-long unsigned.
       01 anUnsignedInt64 binary-double unsigned.
       01 aSingle float-short.
       01 aDouble float-long.
       01 aBoolean condition-value.
       01 aChar character.
       01 aDecimal decimal.
       01 anIntPtr type IntPtr.
       01 anUnsignedIntPtr type UIntPtr.
       01 anObject object.
       01 aString string.