COBOL (COMMON BUSINESS ORIENTED LANGUAGE)

Overview

COBOL Fundamentals
DAY1

Session Plan

Day 1:

 Introduction to COBOL  Evolution, Features & Language Fundamentals  Program Structure  Data description entry

References

M.K.Roy and D. Ghosh Dastidar, COBOL Programming, Tata McGraw Hill, New York, 1973.

Nancy Stern and Robert Stern, COBOL Programming, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1973.

Newcomer and Lawrence, Programming with Structured COBOL, McGraw Hill Books, New York, 1973.

History of COBOL
 
1959 United States Department of Defense

1960 - COBOL initial specifications presented by CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Languages)

  

1964 1968 1974

BASIC COBOL extended to Visual COBOL ANSI (American National Standards Institute) developed American National Standard (ANS) COBOL ANSI published revised version of (ANS) COBOL Business applications needed to manipulate character as well as numeric data String operations added

1985 COBOL 85 Standards was introduced with revised version of COBOL-74.

COBOL
 What does COBOL stand for?
COmmon Business Oriented Language.

 Which are target area of COBOL applications?

Defense, Aircraft, Insurance, Finance, Retail etc (file & data oriented applications involved)

 So we can say that COBOL is basically used for writing

business applications and not for developing system software

COBOL
PROGRAM

Program Structure
Principal portions of a program. There are 4 divisions a) Identification (Required) b) Environment (Optional) Userc) Data (Optional) defined chunk of code which consists of one/more d) Procedure (Required) paragraphs. e.g. defined chunk of code User a) U000-CHECK-LOGone/more which consists of SECTION. b) FILE SECTION. sentences. e.g. A SENTENCE consists of one or a) P000-PRINT-FINAL-TOTALS. more statements and is b) A STATEMENT consists of a PROGRAM-ID. COBOL full and terminated by a verbstop. an e.g. a) MOVE operand or operands. .21 TO VAT-RATE RESERVEDb) e.g. WORDS VAT-AMOUNT = COMPUTE SUBTRACT T-TAX CHARACTERS PRODUCT-COST * VAT-RATE. FROM GROSSPAY GIVING NET-PAY

DIVISIONS

SECTIONS

PARAGRAPHS

SENTENCES

STATEMENTS

USER DEFINED WORDS

COBOL CHARACTER SET

Overview

Character

Meaning

Space + * / = $ , ; . " ( ) > < : ' A-Z a-z 0-9 Plus sign Minus sign or hyphen Asterisk Forward slash or solidus Equal sign Currency sign1 Comma Semicolon Decimal point or period Quotation mark2 Left parenthesis Right parenthesis Greater than Less than Colon Apostrophe Alphabet (uppercase) Alphabet (lowercase) Numeric characters

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION
Compiler takes this as Program Identifier. PROGRAM-ID comes immediately after ID Division.

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. PROG1. AUTHOR. R.R. BHATT. INSTALLATION. ABC CORP. DATE-WRITTEN. 01-JAN-2005. DATE-COMPILED. 01-JAN-2005. SECURITY. HIGH.

OPTIONAL

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

CONFIGURATION SECTION

INPUT-OUTPUTT SECTION

Identifies the computer used for compiling of programs

Identifies the resources used for executing the program

DATA DIVISION
 
The DATA DIVISION is used to describe the data structures used in the program. There are sections in the DATA DIVISION

   

FILE SECTION WORKING-STORAGE SECTION LINKAGE SECTION REPORT SECTION

The two most commonly used components (sections) are a) WORKING-STORAGE SECTION Internal data structures are defined here. b) FILE SECTION File I/O buffer areas are defined here.

DATA DIVISION
DATA DIVISION. FILE SECTION. FD INVENTORY-FILE RECORD CONTAINS 78 CHARACTERS. 01 INVENTORY-REC. 05 IF-PART-NUMBER 05 05 IF-WHSE-LOCS. 10 IF-MAIN-LOC 10 IF-ALT-LOC 05 FD PRINT-FILE. 01 PRINT-REC. 05 05 P-PART-NUMBER 05 05 P-MAIN-LOC 05 05 P-ALT-LOC WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 FLAGS. 05 F-MORE-RECORDS

PIC X(09). PIC X(24). PIC X(06). PIC X(06). PIC X(33).

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

X(10). X(09). X(05). X(06). X(05). X(06).

PIC X VALUE 'Y'.

PROCEDURE DIVISION ..

The PROCEDURE DIVISION consists of the following

   

Sections

Paragraphs

Sentences

Statements

PROCEDURE DIVISION
Section
Section contain one or more Paragraphs.

PROCEDURE DIVISION. 0001-ACCOUNT-SECTION. 001-ACCOUNT-READ-PARA. READ ACC-FILE AT END MOVE Y TO EOF. MOVE TAX-REDUCT TO TAX-AMOUNT 001-ACCOUNT-VALIDATE-PARA. ADD AMOUNT TO TOT-AMOUNT. ACCEPT EMPLOYEE-SALARY DISPLAY Current Employee Salary EMPLOYEE-SALARY. 001-EXIT-PARA. STOP RUN.

Paragraph
A PARAGRAPH comprises of one or more sentences
A SENTENCE is a combination of one or more statements and is terminated by a full stop.

Sentences

statement
A STATEMENT is a combination of a COBOL verb and one or more operands.

First COBOL program

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. FIRSTPG. PROCEDURE DIVISION. A0000-MAIN-PARA. DISPLAY ------------------------------- . DISPLAY WELCOME TO COBOL . DISPLAY -------------------------------- . STOP RUN.

COBOL coding sheet

Column numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 72 80

Column numbers

Area A

Area B

I D E N T

I F I C A T I O N

A R E A

COBOL coding sheet

Almost all COBOL compilers treat a line of COBOL code as if it contained two distinct areas. These are -

AREA A *) Between Column 8 to 11 *) Division, Section, Paragraph names, FD entries & 01 level entries must start in Area A

AREA B *) Between Column 12 to 72 *) All Sentences & Statements start in Area B

COBOL coding rules

 Each line is considered to be made up of 80 columns.  Columns 1 to 6 are reserved for line numbers.
Column 7 is an indicator column and has special meaning to the compiler. Asterisk ( * ) indicates comments Hyphen ( - ) indicates continuation Slash ( / ) indicates form feed

 Columns 8 to 11 are called Area A.

All COBOL DIVISIONs, SECTIONs, paragraphs and some special entries must begin in Area A. All COBOL statements must

 Columns 12 to 72 are called Area B.

begin in Area B.

 Columns 73 to 80 are identification area.

Basic data types

    

Alphabetic ( A) Numeric( 9) Alphanumeric (X) Edited numeric ( Z, $) Edited alphanumeric(/,-)

Data names
    
Are named memory locations. Must be described in the DATA DIVISION before they can be used in the PROCEDURE DIVISION. Can be of elementary or group type. Can be subscripted for Arrays. Are user defined words .

Rules for forming User-defined words

    
Can be at most 30 characters in length. Only alphabets, digits and hyphen are allowed. Blanks are not allowed. May not begin or end with a hyphen. Should not be a COBOL reserved word like ADD,SUBTRACT,MOVE,DISPLAY etc .

Description of data names

 
All the data names used in the PROCEDURE DIVISION must be described in the DATA DIVISION. The description of a data name is done with the aid of the following (1) Level number (2) PICTURE clause (3) VALUE clause

DATA DIVISION. 01 WS-EMPL-NO PIC X(10) VALUE 1001.

LEVEL NO Data Name Picture Clause VALUE Clause

DATA NAME
Level number

LEVEL NO

Is used to specify the the data hierarchy.

Level Number
01 02 to 49 66 77 88

Purpose
Record description and independent items Fields within records and sub items RENAMES clause Independent items Condition names

Piture Clause Code

PICTURE clause

Meaning
Numeric Alphabetic Alphanumeric Implicit Decimal Sign bit

9 A X V S

COBOL PICTURE Clauses


Some examples

 PICTURE 999  PICTURE S999  PICTURE XXXX  PICTURE 99V99  PICTURE S9V9

a three digit (+ive only) integer a three digit (+ive/-ive) integer a four character text item or string a +ive real in the range 0 to 99.99 a +ive/-ive real in the range ?

  

If you wish you can use the abbreviation PIC. Numeric values can have a maximum of 18 (eighteen) digits (i.e. 9 s). The limit on string values is usually system-dependent.

Abbreviating recurring symbols


Recurring symbols can be specified using a repeat factor inside round brackets

 PIC 9(6) is equivalent to PICTURE 999999  PIC 9(6)V99 is equivalent to PIC 999999V99  PICTURE X(10) is equivalent to PIC XXXXXXXXXX  PIC S9(4)V9(4) is equivalent to PIC S9999V9999  PIC 9(18) is equivalent to PIC 999999999999999999

Declaring DATA in COBOL


In COBOL a variable declaration consists of a line containing the following items; A level number. A data-name or identifier. A PICTURE clause.

We can give a starting value to variables by means of an extension to the picture clause called the value clause.

DATA DIVISION. WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 Num1 PIC 999 VALUE ZEROS. 01 VatRate PIC V99 VALUE .18. 01 StudentName PIC X(10) VALUE SPACES. DATA
Num1 VatRate StudentName

000

.18

Description of data names ..

VALUE clause

  

Is used to assign an initial value to a elementary data item. The initial value can be numeric literal, non- numeric literal or figurative constant. Is an optional clause.

Literals
 
Literals are symbols whose value does not change in a program. There are 3 types of literals namely (1) Numeric literals. (2) Non-numeric literals. (3) Figurative constants.

Literals

Figurative Constants Meaning

Represents the value 0, one or more depending on the context Represents one or more spaces Represents the highest value Represents the lowest value Represents single or double quotes Fill With Literal

Figurative constants
ZERO(S) or ZEROES SPACE(S) HIGH-VALUE(S) LOW-VALUE(S) QUOTE(S)

ALL literal

Figurative Constants - Examples

01 GrossPay PIC 9(5)V99 VALUE 13.5.

ZERO MOVE ZEROS TO GrossPay. ZEROES

GrossPay 0 0 0 1 3 5 0


01

StudentName

PIC X(10) VALUE "MIKE".

MOVE ALL "-" TO StudentName.

StudentName

M I K E

Figurative Constants - Examples

01 GrossPay PIC 9(5)V99 VALUE 13.5. ZERO MOVE ZEROS TO GrossPay. ZEROES
GrossPay 0 0 0 0 0


01

StudentName

PIC X(10) VALUE "MIKE".

MOVE ALL "-" TO StudentName.

StudentName

- - - - - - - - - -

Group and elementary items


In COBOL the term group item is used to describe a data item which has been further subdivided.

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS PIC X(30). 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS. 05 EMP-NUM PIC 9(4). 05 EMP-NAME PIC X(10). 05 EMP-DEPT PIC X(4). 05 EMP-LOC PIC X(12).

A Group item is declared using a level number and a data name. It cannot have a picture clause. Where a group item is the highest item in a data hierarchy it is referred to as a record and uses the level number 01. Picture clauses are NOT specified for group data items because the size of a group item is the sum of the sizes of its subordinate, elementary items and its type is always assumed to be PIC X.

Group Items/Records - Example

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS PIC X(20). 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS. 05 EMP-NUM PIC 9(4). 05 EMP-NAME PIC X(10). 05 EMP-DEPT PIC X(4). 05 EMP-LOC PIC X(12).

Group item

Sub-Items

Group Items/Records - Example

Data in input file 123456789012345678901234567890 1234JyothiS E&R Bangalore 2234Archana E&R Marathi 9999Bhushan E&R C++ (cols)

Variable for file read

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS PIC X(30).

Value
1234JyothiS E&R Bangalore

Group Items/Records - Example

Data in input file 123456789012345678901234567890 (cols) 1234JyothiS E&R Bangalore 2234Archana E&R Mysore 9999Bhushan E&R Chennai

Variable for file read

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS PIC X(30). 01 EMPLOYEE-DETAILS. 05 EMP-NUM PIC 9(4). 05 EMP-NAME PIC X(10). 05 EMP-DEPT PIC X(4). 05 EMP-LOC PIC X(12).

Value
1234JyothiS 1234 JyothiS E&R Bangalore E&R Bangalore

LEVEL Numbers & DATA hierarchy

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 POLICY-DETAILS. 05 POLICY-NO. 10 POLICY-TYP PIC X(4). 10 POLICY-LOC PIC X(2). 10 POLICY-ID PIC X(5). 05 POLICY-TYPE PIC X(10). 05 POLICY-EXPDT PIC X(10).

In COBOL, Level numbers are used to express data hierarchy. The higher the level number, the lower the item is in the hierarchy. So Group items contain sets of elementary items with lower level numbers. At the lowest level the data is completely atomic.

Description of data names

DATA DIVISION. WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 WS-REGNO PIC X(5). 01 WS-NAME. 05 WS-FIRST-NAME PIC A(15). 05 WS-MID-NAME PIC A(15). 05 WS-LAST-NAME PIC A(10). 01 WS-AGE PIC 99V99. 01 WS-SCHOLARSHIP PIC 9(4) VALUE 1000.

Group Items/Records
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 StudentDetails PIC X(26).

StudentDetails
H E N N E S S Y R M 9 2 3 0 1 6 5 L M 5 1 0 5 5 0 F

Group Items/Records
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 StudentDetails. 02 StudentName 02 StudentId 02 CourseCode 02 Grant 02 Gender

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

X(10). 9(7). X(4). 9(4). X.

StudentDetails
H EN N E S S Y RM 9 2 3 0 1 6 5 L M 5 1 0 5 5 0 F
StudentName StudentId CourseCode Grant Gender

Group Items/Records
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 StudentDetails. 02 StudentName. 03 Surname 03 Initials 02 StudentId 02 CourseCode 02 Grant 02 Gender

PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC PIC

X(8). XX. 9(7). X(4). 9(4). X.

StudentDetails H EN N E S S Y RM 9 2 3 0 1 6 5 L M 5 1 0 5 5 0 F
StudentName Surname StudentId Initials CourseCode Grant Gender

MOVE VERB

Overview

The MOVE Verb

Identifier TO _Identifiera . . MOVE . Literal

    

MOVE copies data from the source identifier or literal to one or more destination identifiers. MOVE copies data to Group or elementary data items. MOVE always performs LEFT JUSTIFICATION to Character MOVE always perform RIGHT JUSTIFICATION to Numeric data. When data is MOVEd into an item the contents of the item are completely replaced.

 If the source data is too small to fill the destination

item entirely the remaining area is zero or space filled.

MOVEing Data

MOVE RYAN TO Surname. MOVE FITZPATRICK TO Surname.

01 Surname PIC X(8). C O U G H L A N

MOVEing Data

MOVE RYAN TO Surname. MOVE FITZPATRICK TO Surname.

01 Surname R Y A N

PIC X(8).

MOVEing Data

MOVE RYAN TO Surname. MOVE FITZPATRICK TO Surname.

01 Surname F I T Z P

PIC X(8). A T R I C K

MOVEing to a numeric item.


When the destination item is numeric, or edited numeric, then data is aligned along the decimal point with zero filling or truncation as necessary. When the decimal point is not explicitly specified in either the source or destination items, the item is treated as if it had an assumed decimal point immediately after its rightmost character.

01 GrossPay

PIC 9(4)V99.
GrossPay

MOVE ZEROS TO GrossPay. MOVE 12.4 TO GrossPay.

0 0 0 0 0 0
GrossPay


0 0 1 2
GrossPay


4 0

MOVE 123.456 TO GrossPay. 0 1

GrossPay

2 3


4 5 6

MOVE 12345.757 TO GrossPay. 1 2 3 4 5



7 5 7

01 CountyPop 01 Price

PIC 999. PIC 999V99.

CountyPop

MOVE 1234 TO CountyPop. MOVE 12.4 TO CountyPop.

1 2 3 4
CountyPop


0 1
Price

2 4


MOVE 154 TO Price. MOVE 3552.75 TO Price.

1 5 4


0 0

Price

3 5 5 2


7 5

Before

After

WS00-OUT1 WS00-OUT2

0000 000000

WS00-OUT1 WS00-OUT2

3456 345678

Before

WS00-OUT3 After

000000

WS00-OUT3

123456

Before

After

WS00-OUT4

00000000

WS00-OUT4

12345678

MOVE .. example

****************************

Output SPOOL

WS00-OUT1 : HARAYANA WS00-OUT2 : HARAYANA ****************************

The DISPLAY Verb

Identifier Identifier ... DISPLAY Literal Literal

?UPON Mnemonic - NameA ?WITH NO ADVANCINGA

   

From time to time it may be useful to display messages and data values on the screen. A simple DISPLAY statement can be used to achieve this. A single DISPLAY can be used to display several data items or literals or any combination of these. The WITH NO ADVANCING clause suppresses the carriage return/line feed.

The ACCEPT verb

Format 1. ACCEPT Identifier ?FROM Mnemonic - nameA
DATE DAY Format 2. ACCEPT Identifier FROM DAY - OF - WEEK TIME

01 CurrentDate
* YYMMDD * YYDDD

PIC 9(6). PIC 9(5). PIC 9. PIC 9(8).

01 DayOfYear 01 Day0fWeek
* D (1=Monday)

01 CurrentTime
* HHMMSSss s = S/100

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. AcceptAndDisplay. AUTHOR. Michael Coughlan.

Run of Accept and Display program

Enter student details using template below NNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSCCCCGGGGS COUGHLANMS9476532LM511245M Name is MS COUGHLAN Date is 24 01 94 Today is day 024 of the year The time is 22:23

DATA DIVISION. WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 StudentDetails. 02 StudentName. 03 Surname PIC 03 Initials PIC 02 StudentId PIC 02 CourseCode PIC 02 Grant PIC 02 Gender PIC 01 CurrentDate. 02 CurrentYear 02 CurrentMonth 02 CurrentDay 01 DayOfYear. 02 FILLER 02 YearDay 01 CurrentTime. 02 CurrentHour 02 CurrentMinute 02 FILLER

X(8). XX. 9(7). X(4). 9(4). X.

PIC 99. PIC 99. PIC 99. PIC 99. PIC 9(3). PIC 99. PIC 99. PIC 9(4).

PROCEDURE DIVISION. Begin. DISPLAY "Enter student details using template below". DISPLAY "NNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSCCCCGGGGS ". ACCEPT StudentDetails. ACCEPT CurrentDate FROM DATE. ACCEPT DayOfYear FROM DAY. ACCEPT CurrentTime FROM TIME. DISPLAY "Name is ", Initials SPACE Surname. DISPLAY "Date is " CurrentDay SPACE CurrentMonth SPACE CurrentYear. DISPLAY "Today is day " YearDay " of the year". DISPLAY "The time is " CurrentHour ":" CurrentMinute. STOP RUN.

Example Program - Date

Overview