APL extensions for OpenCOBOL sounds like a grand idea.<p>Just built the newly GPL'ed version of JSoftware's J announced by Eric Iverson. I'll give it a try.<p>Ok, first cut. Don't know enough APL (J) yet to get output to prove it's working, but it inits and evaluates 1 + 1 without any error codes.<p><pre><code> *> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110711
*> Purpose: Attempt calling a J sentence. APL in COBOL.
*> Tectonics: cobc -x callj.cob -lj
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. callj.
data division.
working-storage section.
77 jptr usage pointer.
77 result usage binary-long.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
call "JInit" returning jptr end-call
display jptr end-display
call "JDo"
using by value jptr
by content z"a =. 1 + 1"
returning result
end-call
display result end-display
goback.
end program callj.
$ cobc -x callj.cob -lj
0x00007f06912bf010
+0000000000
</code></pre>
Life can be a lot of fun.