How to compile with GnuCOBOL

Question

I am trying to add a task to compile a program but am having difficulty with setting environment variables. I have this:

{
  // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink LinkId=733558
  // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
  "version": "2.0.0",
   "label": "GnuCOBOL - Compile (single file)",
   "type": "shell",
   "options": {
    "env": {
        "PATH=c:\\gnucobol3\\bin"
        "COB_CONFIG_DIR=c:\\gnucobol3\\config"
        "COB_COPY_DIR=c:\\gnucobol3\\copy"
        "COB_INCLUDE_PATH=c:\\gnucobol3\\include"
        "COB_LIB_PATH=c:\\gnucobol3\\lib"
       },
    "command": "cobc",
    "args": [
      "-x",
      "-std=mf",
      "-tPROG.LST",
      "BBCB.CBL"
      ]
    },
} 

The env entries all have squiggly lines underneath and show errors "Colon expected".

I'd appreciate some help. Thanks.

Answer 1

The env entries all have squiggly lines underneath and show errors "Colon expected".

Because it expects a contained list which should have colons in and uses commas for separation (identical to the options variable) [note: that actually is a json issue, using that tag may be reasonable]. See Schema for tasks.json.

Also your script has some file names hard-wired (which is a vscode specific), you'll likely want to use the supported variables instead.

Untested result:

{
  // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink LinkId=733558
  // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
  "version": "2.0.0",
   "label": "GnuCOBOL - Compile (single file)",
   "type": "shell",
   "options": {
    "env": {
        "PATH": "c:\\gnucobol3\\bin",
        "COB_CONFIG_DIR": "c:\\gnucobol3\\config",
        "COB_COPY_DIR": "c:\\gnucobol3\\copy",
        "COB_INCLUDE_PATH": "c:\\gnucobol3\\include",
        "COB_LIB_PATH": "c:\\gnucobol3\\lib",
       },
    "command": "cobc",
    "args": [
      "-x",
      "-std=mf",
      "-t${fileBasenameNoExtension}.LST",
      "${file}"
      ]
    },
}