In the meantime I have coded a workaround with ant-contrib. There is a Task called "outofdate" which does the dependency checking. It looks like this
<target name="compile" depends="init">
<for param="file">
<path>
<fileset refid="cbl.src.files"/>
</path>
<sequential>
<var name="filebasename" unset="true"/>
<basename property="filebasename" file="@{file}" suffix=".CBL"/>
<var name="filedirname" unset="true"/>
<dirname property="filedirname" file="@{file}"/>
<antcallback target="compile.file" return="retValue">
<param name="filename" value="${filebasename}"/>
<param name="dirname" value="${filedirname}"/>
</antcallback>
</sequential>
</for>
<echo>${ant.project.name} compile finished</echo>
</target>
<target name="compile.file">
<outofdate>
<sourcefiles>
<pathelement path="${dirname}/${filename}.CBL"/>
</sourcefiles>
<targetfiles>
<pathelement path="${basedir}/bin/de/lv1871/cobol/${filename}.class"/>
</targetfiles>
<sequential>
<echo>
COBOL Compile fuer :
dirname = ${dirname}
filename = ${filename}.CBL
</echo>
<mfcobol destdir="${basedir}/bin" is64bit="false" forceCompile="${forceCompile}"
failonerror="${cobolFailOnError}" genListingFile="true" debug="true" desttype="jvm">
<mffilelist refid="cobol.copybook.locations"/>
<mfdirlist refid="cobol.directives"/>
<mffilelist type="srcfile" srcdir="${dirname}">
<file name="${filename}.CBL"/>
</mffilelist>
</mfcobol>
</sequential>
</outofdate>
</target>
Source File is the Cobol-File and Destination File is the class File generated in $BASEDIR/bin/...... If the source File is younger than the "older" Class file the cobol Compile is started. Usually the MF-Cobol Ant Task should do this checking by default. It is a FUNDAMENTAL Feature of ant.
Kind regards