AUTOMATED INTERFACE GENERATION FOR COMPUTER PROGRAMS IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS

Automated interface generation for computer programs operating in different environments is provided. An automated interface generation system, method, computer program product and article of manufacture is provided comprising an import utility and a runtime environment. The import utility imports a COBOL IMS transaction source file, parses the specified input and output message records, and generates an application programming interface. The application programming interface operates with the runtime environment to take the data values from the language of a different environment and translate them to a formatted IMS input message. This format is derived from the definition of the input message record in the COBOL IMS transaction source file. After the IMS transaction has executed, the resulting IMS output message is translated back to the data values of the language of the different environment, said values including the results of the transaction. The translation step handles data conversion between different code pages, machine architectures, and program semantics, and handles the dynamic nature of IMS messages.