gnucobol gcc: error: `cob-config: No such file or directory

Question

I'm trying to practice a C program (hello.c) calling cobol program (say.cob) from the manual gnucobol.

    ---- say.cob ------
    IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
    PROGRAM-ID. say.
    ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
    DATA DIVISION.
    LINKAGE SECTION.
    01 HELLO PIC X(6).
    01 WORLD PIC X(6).
    PROCEDURE DIVISION USING HELLO WORLD.
    DISPLAY HELLO WORLD.
    EXIT PROGRAM.

    ---- hello.c -
    #include <libcob.h>
    extern int say(char *hello, char *world);
    int
    main()
    {
     int ret;
     char hello[7] = "Hello ";
     char world[7] = "World!";
     cob_init(0, NULL);
     ret = say(hello, world);
     return ret;
     }


     C:\Users\S M Rao>gcc -c ‘cob-config --cflags‘ hello.c
     gcc: error: `cob-config: No such file or directory
     gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '--cflags`'

    if I run with commands 

    cobc -c hello.c 
    cobc -c -static say.cob 
    cobc -x -o hello hello.o say.o

   getting following error 

    C:\Users\S M Rao>cobc -x -o hello hello.o say.o
    hello.o:hello.c:(.text+0x5c): undefined reference to `say'
    collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

I can see cob-config is present in gnucobol folder. And in environment variables COB_CONFIG_DIR %COB_MAIN_DIR%\config

what could be the problem? any help please?

Answer 1

cob-config would need to be an executable script, which it commonly is. As you specify windows paths I assume you use that - and this one cannot run shell scripts. You may get around that with and additional cob-config.bat that executes this shell script, but In this case it will output mingw/wsl/cygwin/... paths that likely cannot be used in the Windows gcc.

Solutions:

1. run gcc in the matching shell, not from the windows side and have cob-config as an executable script in $PATH
2. use cobc's feature to call the C processor (and if wanted also the linker) for you: cobc -c hello.c