Alan,

check out the AskOp.java example on my web page, if you like. It calls
a COBOL subroutine, which in turn calls the PRINTOP and PRINTOPREPLY
intrinsics (using a little bit of GNU gcc code as "glue"). Might serve
as a starter.

 http://www.editcorp.com/personal/lars_appel/index.html -> Java Tips

The Interex shared source pages also seem to have Mike Yawn's Intrinsic
package, which allows calling NMXL routines without having to code the
intermediate GNU gcc "glue" as far as I recall. I don't have practical
experience with that, though.

I've also begun to create a little bit of code to run COBOL (or other
language) programs in child processes and pass data back and forth using
a user mapped file (a series of strings in "request/response" fashion).
However, this is still an early prototype, so I am willing to share only
with "be careful, use at your own risk, feedback/contributions welcome"
type of disclaimer...

(The idea behind having [a potential pool of] child process[es] comes
from the context of multithreaded app's, like Apache JServ, where a pure
JavaNativeInterface call could block all threads during a DBLOCK wait;
multiple child processes should also scale better on multi-CPU boxes).

Lars.