System for automated interface generation for computer programs operating in different environments

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a system for for automated interface generation for computer programs operating in different environments. The system comprises a utility which imports a CICS COBOL transaction source file, parses the communication area of the CICS file, and generates modelling information. The modelling information represents the nature and structure of data in the CICS transaction source file, and is written to a persistent data store. The utility uses the information in the persistent data store to generate an application programming interface. The application programming interface takes the data values from the other language and translates them to a formatted CICS COBOL communications area. This format is derived from the definition of the CICS communications area contained in the imported CICS program. After the translation runs, the resulting CICS COBOL communications area is translated back to the data values of the other language. This translation step also handles the data conversion between different codepages and machine architectures and program semantics. The resulting language values represent the result of the transaction. The CICS transaction is accessed using the CICS External Call Interface mechanism.