I need a seasoned developer who can reliably open, read, and extract records from an existing COBOL data store so I can wire that information straight into my PHP-based custom application. The goal is pure system integration—no interest in full data migration or standalone reporting, just a clean way to pull live data for immediate use inside the current PHP code-base. What I can provide: copybooks, sample data files, and a short list of the specific tables/segments my app needs. What I expect back: well-documented source (command-line tool, library, or lightweight service—your call) that connects to the COBOL files, parses them correctly, and returns JSON or another PHP-friendly structure on demand. Accuracy with EBCDIC, packed decimals, and any variable-length records is critical; performance can be modest, stability cannot. Hand-off will be considered complete when I can call the integration from my local PHP environment, retrieve the requested fields, and see no data discrepancies against the original COBOL records.