This manual documents the July2020 build of GnuCOBOL 3.1 RC-1.
This document describes the syntax, semantics and use of the COBOL programming language as implemented by GnuCOBOL, formerly known as OpenCOBOL.
The original principal developers of GnuCOBOL were Keisuke Nishida and Roger While. Since then, many members of the community have been involved in its development.
This document is intended to serve as a fully functional reference and user’s guide, suitable for both those readers learning COBOL for the first time as a training tool, as well as those already familiar with another dialect of COBOL.
A separate manual — containing only the details of the GnuCOBOL implementation and designed for experienced COBOL programmers — has been taken from this guide. That document (GnuCOBOL Quick Reference) contains no training subject matter.
Other documents that should be read is the gnucobol.pdf found in the doc directory of the compiler sources and the file NEWS supplied with the source code of the GnuCOBOL compiler, in the top-level directory. There you will find the latest COBOL language features that have been added, some of which may not be in this document due to time constraints. If you find any, please report it as a bug for the Programmer’s Guide so that it can be fixed.
Yet another document which delves deeper in to the compiler that is a must read, is the FAQ available via the GnuCOBOL Manuals and Guides, although it could do with a wee clean up to ease reading and finding required information.
For those wishing to learn COBOL for the first time, Gary can strongly recommend the following resources.
If you like to hold a book in your hands, I strongly recommend Murach’s Structured COBOL, by Mike Murach, Anne Prince and Raul Menendez (2000) - ISBN 9781890774059. Mike Murach and his various writing partners have been writing outstanding COBOL textbooks for decades. It’s an excellent book for those familiar with the concepts of programming in other languages, but unfamiliar with COBOL.
Would you prefer a web-based tutorial? Try the University of Limerick (Ireland) - COBOL web site.
In addition there is the GnuCOBOL FAQ — which has now exceeded 1,400 pages — available as HTML or a downloadable .pdf file.
Along with every release of the compiler sources is the file NEWS. It contains up to the minute updates regarding the compiler and additional COBOL language elements which may well not be yet included in this manual.
If you already know a programming language other than COBOL, chances are that language is Java, C or C++. You will find COBOL much different from those; sometimes the differences are a good thing and sometimes they aren’t. The thing to remember about COBOL is this: it was designed to solve business problems.
COBOL, first introduced to the programming public in 1959, was the very first programming language to become standardized (in 1960). This meant that a standard-compliant COBOL program written on computer “A” made by company “B” would be able to be compiled and executed on computer “X” made by company “Y” with very few, if any, changes. This may not seem like such a big deal today, but it was a radical departure from all programming languages that came before it and even many that came after it.
The name COBOL actually says it all — COBOL is an acronym that stands for “(CO)mmon (B)usiness (O)riented (L)anguage”. Note the fact that the word “common” comes before all others. The word “business” is a close second. Therein lies the key to COBOL’s success.
Despite statements from industry “insiders”, the COBOL programming language is not dead, even though newer and so-called “modern” languages like Java, C#, .NET, Ruby on Rails and so on appear to have become the languages of choice in the Information Technology world. These languages have become popular because they address the following desired requirements for “modern” programming:
Just because COBOL doesn’t traditionally support objects, classes, and the like doesn’t mean that its “procedural” approach to computing isn’t valuable — after all, it runs 70% of the worlds business transactions, and does so:
Today’s IT managers and business leaders are faced with a challenging dilemma — how do you maintain the enormous COBOL code base that is still running their businesses when academia has all but abandoned the language they need their people to use to keep the wheels rolling? The problem is compounded by the fact that those programmers that are skilled in COBOL are retiring and taking their knowledge with them. In some markets, this appears to be having an inflationary effect on the cost of resources (COBOL programmers) whose supply is becoming smaller and smaller. The pressure to update applications to make use of more up-to-date graphical user interfaces is also perceived as a reason to abandon COBOL in favour of GUI-friendly languages such as Java.
Businesses are addressing the COBOL challenge in different ways:
It’s probably a true that an IT professional can no longer afford to allow COBOL to be the only wrench in their toolbox, but with a massive code base still in production now and for the foreseeable future, adding COBOL to a multi-lingual curriculum vitae (CV) and/or resume (yes — they ARE different) is not a bad thing at all. Knowing COBOL as well as the language du-jour will make you the smartest person in the room when the discussion of migrating the current “legacy” environment to a “modern” implementation comes around.
You’ll find COBOL an easy language to learn and a FAR EASIER language to master than many of the “modern” languages.
The whole reason you’re reading this is that you’ve discovered GnuCOBOL — another implementation of COBOL in addition to those mentioned earlier. The distinguishing characteristic of GnuCOBOL versus those others is that GnuCOBOL is FREE open-source and therefore FREE to obtain and use. It is community-enhanced and community-supported. Later in this document (see So What is GnuCOBOL?), you’ll begin to learn more about this COBOL implementation’s capabilities.
Throughout the history of computer programming, the search for new ways to improve of the productivity of programmers has been a major consideration. Other than hobbyists, programming is an activity performed for money, and businesses abhor spending anything more than is absolutely necessary; even government agencies try to spend as little money on projects as is absolutely necessary.
The amount of programming necessary to accomplish a given task — including rework needed by any errors found during testing (testing is sometimes jokingly defined as: that time during which an application is actually in production, allowing users to discover the problems) is the measure of programmer productivity. Anything that reduces that effort will therefore reduce the time spent in such activities therefore reducing the expense of same. When the expense of programming is reduced, programmer productivity is increased.
Sometimes the quest for improved programmer productivity (and therefore reduced programming expense) has taken the form of introducing new features in programming languages, or even new languages altogether. Sometimes it has resulted in new ways of using the existing languages.
While many technological and procedural developments have made evolutionary improvements to programmer productivity, each of the following three events has been responsible for revolutionary improvements:
The reality is, however, that good programmers have been practising code re-usability for more than a half-century. Up until recently, COBOL programmers have had some of the best code re-usability tools available — they’ve been doing it with copybooks and subprograms rather than classes, methods and attributes but the net results have been similar. With the COBOL2002 and the COBOL 2014 standards, the COBOL programming language has become just as “object-oriented” as the “modern” languages, while preserving the ability to support, modify, compile and execute “legacy” COBOL programs as well.
While GnuCOBOL supports few of the OOP programming constructs defined by the COBOL2002 and COBOL2014 standards, it supports every aspect of the ANSI 85 standard and therefore fully meets the needs of points #1 and #2, above. With its supported feature set (see So What is GnuCOBOL?), it provides significant programmer productivity capabilities.
GnuCOBOL is a free and open sourced COBOL compiler and runtime environment, written using the C programming language. GnuCOBOL is typically distributed in source-code form, and must then be built for your computer’s operating system using the system’s C compiler and loader. While originally developed for the UNIX and Linux operating systems, GnuCOBOL has also been successfully built for computers running OSX and Windows utilizing the UNIX-emulation features of such tools as Cygwin and MinGW. Also see the GNU website for more information at.
The MinGW approach is a personal favourite with the author of this manual because it creates a GnuCOBOL compiler and runtime library that require only a single MinGW DLL to be available for the GnuCOBOL compiler, runtime library and user programs. That DLL is freely distributable under the terms of the GNU General Public License. A MinGW build of GnuCOBOL fits easily on and runs from a 128MB flash drive with no need to install any software onto the Windows computer that will be using it. Some functionality of the language, dealing with the sharing of files between concurrently executing GnuCOBOL programs and record locking on certain types of files, is sacrificed however as the underlying operating system routines needed to implement them aren’t available to Windows and aren’t provided by MinGW. The current version for MinGW is available at the download link along with various other platforms at the GnuCOBOL download website.
GnuCOBOL has also been built as a truly native Windows application utilizing Microsoft’s freely-downloadable Visual Studio Express package to provide the C compiler and linker/loader. This approach does not lend itself well to a “portable” distribution.
The GnuCOBOL compiler generates C code from your COBOL programs; that C code is then automatically compiled and linked using your system’s C compiler (typically, but not limited to, gcc).
GnuCOBOL fully supports much of the ANSI 85 standard for COBOL (the only major exclusion is the Communications Module) and also supports some of the components of the COBOL2002 and COBOL2014 standards, such as the SCREEN SECTION (see SCREEN SECTION), table-based SORT (see Table SORT) and user-defined functions. There are others with more being added almost weekly.
This chapter describes the syntax, semantics and usage of the COBOL programming language as implemented by the current version of GnuCOBOL. For the rest of this document the Language is spelt as COBOL to ease reading however the compiler name retains the mixed case of GnuCOBOL.
This document is intended to serve as a full-function reference and user’s guide suitable for both those readers learning COBOL for the first time as usage as a training tool, as well as those already familiar with some dialects of the COBOL language.
A separate manual exists that just contains the details of the Cobol grammar as implemented in GnuCOBOL, which is designed strictly for experienced COBOL programmers and this is taken from this guide. This does NOT contain any training subject matter.
These extra manuals are: GnuCOBOL Quick Reference containing just the COBOL semantics / grammar in a short document while the other, GnuCOBOL Sample Programs, shows detailed example Cobol programs with indication of syntax used in each program.
For each implementation of the GnuCOBOL compiler the supplied files NEWS should also be read for any last minute updates along with files README and INSTALL for building the compiler.
Cobol programs consist of a sequence of words and symbols. Words, which consist of sequences of letters (upper- and/or lower-case), digits, dashes (‘-’) and/or underscores (‘_’) may have a pre-defined, specific, meaning to the compiler or may be invented by the programmer for his/her purposes.
The GnuCOBOL language specification defines over 1130 Reserved Words — words to which the compiler assigns a special meaning. This list and number applies to the default list which covers many implementations and that it is possible to limit the list to either a specific implementation via -std=xyz[-strict] or to manually unreserve words if they are used in existing sources as user-defined words.
Programmers may use a reserved word as part of a word they are creating themselves, but may not create their own word as an exact duplicate (without regard to case) of a COBOL reserved word. Note that a reserved word includes all classes, such as intrinsic functions, mnemonics names, system routines and reserved words. The list of reserved words can be changed by adding or removing specific words for a given compile or as a default by use of the steering command -std and -conf. See the specific config files that are by default, held in /usr/local/share/gnucobol/config. Also using the option ‘FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC’, will add another 100+ reserved words. These can be modified to match the requirements of a business or project team but be warned that these are updated when a new version of the compiler is built so might be more prudent to create your own configuation based on an existing one but with a different name.
In addition, you can add and/or remove reserved words by adding one of these options to cobc to add -freserved-words=value or -freserved=word or, to remove, -fnot-reserved=word. As well as -freserved=word:alias to create an alias for a word as well as -fnot-register=word or -fregister=word to remove or add, a special register word.
See Appendix B - Reserved Word List, for a complete list of GnuCOBOL reserved words .
For any given version of GnuCOBOL you can also list the full current set of reserved words by running cobc with --list-reserved, --list-intrinsic, --list-system as well as --list-mnemonics. Again subject to variation depending on usage of the --std line command.
When you write GnuCOBOL programs, you’ll need to create a variety of words to represent various aspects of the program, the program’s data and the external environment in which the program will run. This will include internal names by which data files will be referenced, data item names and names of executable logic procedures.
User-defined words may be composed from the characters ‘A’ through ‘Z’ (upper- and/or lower-case), ‘0’ through ‘9’, dash (‘-’) and underscore (‘_’). User-defined words may neither start nor end with hyphen or underscore characters.
Other programming languages provide the programmer with a similar capability of creating their own words (names) for parts of a program; COBOL is somewhat unusual when compared to other languages in that user-defined words may start with a digit.
With the exception of logic procedure names, which may consist entirely of nothing but digits, user-defined words must contain at least one letter.
All COBOL implementations allow the use of both upper and lower case letters in program coding. GnuCOBOL is completely insensitive to the case used when writing reserved words or user-defined names. Thus, AAAAA, aaaaa, Aaaaa and AaAaA are all the same word as far as GnuCOBOL is concerned.
The only time the case used does matter is within quoted character strings, where character values will be exactly as coded.
By convention throughout this document, COBOL reserved words will be shown entirely in UPPER-CASE while those words that were created by a programmer will be represented by tokens in mixed or lower case.
This isn’t a bad practice to use in actual programs, as it leads to programs where it is much easier to distinguish reserved words from user-defined ones!
Critics of COBOL frequently focus on the wordiness of the language, often citing the case of a so-called “Hello World” program as the “proof” that COBOL is so much more tedious to program in than more “modern” languages. This tedium is cited as such a significant impact to programmer productivity that, in their opinions, COBOL can’t go away quickly enough.
Here are two different “Hello World” applications, one written in Java and the second in GnuCOBOL. First, the Java version:
Class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
}
And here is the same program, written in GnuCOBOL:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HelloWorld.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Hello World!".
Both of the above programs could have been written on a single line, if desired, and both languages allow a programmer to use (or not use) indentation as they see fit to improve program readability. Sounds like a tie so far.
Let’s look at how much more “wordy” COBOL is than Java. Count the characters in the two programs. The Java program has 95 (not counting carriage returns and any indentation). The COBOL program has 89 (again, not counting carriage returns and indentation)! Technically, it could have been only 65 because the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. header is actually optional. Clearly, “Hello World” doesn’t look any more concise in Java than it does in COBOL.
Let’s look at a different problem. Surely a program that asks a user to input a positive integer, generates the sum of all positive integers from 1 to that number and then prints the result will be MUCH shorter and MUCH easier to understand when coded in Java than in COBOL, right?
You can be the judge. First, the Java version:
import java.util.Scanner;
public class sumofintegers {
public static void main(String[] arg) {
System.out.println("Enter a positive integer");
Scanner scan=new Scanner(System.in);
int n=scan.nextInt();
int sum=0;
for (int i=1;i<=n;i++) {
sum+=i;
}
System.out.println("The sum is "+sum);
}
}
And now for the COBOL version:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. SumOfIntegers.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 n BINARY-LONG.
01 i BINARY-LONG.
01 sum BINARY-LONG VALUE 0.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Enter a positive integer"
ACCEPT n
PERFORM VARYING i FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL i > n
ADD i TO sum
END-PERFORM
DISPLAY "The sum is " sum.
My familiarity with COBOL may be prejudicing my opinion, but it doesn’t appear to me that the Java code is any simpler than the COBOL code. In case you’re interested in character counts, the Java code comes in at 278 (not counting indentation characters). The COBOL code is 298 (274 without the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. header).
Despite what you’ve seen here, the more complex the programming logic being implemented, the more concise the Java code will appear to be, even compared to 2002-standard COBOL. That conciseness comes with a price though — program code readability. Java (or C or C++ or C#) programs are generally intelligible only to trained programmers. COBOL programs can, however, be quite understandable by non-programmers. This is actually a side-effect of the “wordiness” of the language, where COBOL statements use natural English words to describe their actions. This inherent readability has come in handy many times throughout my career when I’ve had to learn obscure business (or legal) processes by reading the COBOL program code that supports them.
The “modern” languages, like Java, also have their own “boilerplate” infrastructure overhead that must be coded in order to write the logic that is necessary in the program. Take for example the public static void main(String[] arg) and import java.util.Scanner; statements. The critics tend to forget about this when they criticize COBOL for its structural “overhead”.
When it first was developed, COBOL’s easily-readable syntax made it profoundly different from anything that had been seen before. For the first time, it was possible to specify logic in a manner that was — at least to some extent — comprehensible even to non-programmers. Take for example, the following code written in FORTRAN — a language developed only a year before COBOL:
EXT = PRICE * IQTY
INVTOT = INVTOT + EXT
With its original limitation on the length of variable names (one- to six-character names comprised of a letter followed by up to five letters and/or digits), its implicit rule that variables were automatically created as real (floating-point) unless their name started with a letter in the range I-N, and its use of algebraic notation to express actions being taken, FORTRAN wasn’t a particularly readable language, even for programmers. Compare this with the equivalent COBOL code:
MULTIPLY price BY quantity GIVING extended-amount
ADD extended-amount TO invoice-total
Clearly, even a non-programmer could at least conceptually understand what was going on! Over time, languages like FORTRAN evolved more robust variable names, and COBOL introduced a more formula-based syntactical capability for arithmetic operations, but FORTRAN was never as readable as COBOL.
Because of its inherent readability, I would MUCH rather be handed an assignment to make significant changes to a COBOL program about which I know nothing than to be asked to do the same with a C, C++, C# or Java program.
Those that argue that it is too boring / wasteful / time-consuming / insulting (pick one) to have to code a COBOL program “from scratch” are clearly ignorant of the following facts:
COBOL programs are structured into four major areas of coding, each with its own purpose. These four areas are known as divisions.
Each division may consist of a variety of sections and each section consists of one or more paragraphs. A paragraph consists of sentences, each of which consists of one or more statements.
This hierarchical structure of program components standardizes the composition of all COBOL programs. Much of this manual describes the various divisions, sections, paragraphs and statements that may comprise any COBOL program.
COPY statement (see COPY)
A
Copybook is a segment of program code that may be utilized by multiple programs simply by having those programs use the COPY statement to import that code. This code may define files, data structures or procedural code.
Today’s current programming languages have a statement (usually, this statement is named “import”, “include” or “#include”) that performs this same function. What makes the COBOL copybook feature different than the “include” facility in newer languages, however, is the fact that the COPY statement can edit the imported source code as it is being copied. This capability makes copybook libraries extremely valuable to making code reusable. Also see section 3. Compiler Directing Facility commands COPY and REPLACE.
A contiguous area of storage within the memory space of a program that may be referenced, by name, in a COBOL program is referred to as a Data Item. Other programming languages use the term variable, property or attribute to describe the same thing.
COBOL introduced the concept of structured data. The principle of structured data in COBOL is based on the idea of being able to group related and contiguously-allocated data items together into a single aggregate data item, called a Group Item. For example, a 35-character ’Employee-Name’ group item might consist of a 20-character ’Last-Name’ followed by a 14-character ’First-Name’ and a 1-character ’Middle-Initial’.
A data item that isn’t itself formed from other data items is referred to in COBOL as an Elementary Item. In the previous example, ’Last-Name’, ’First-Name’ and ’Middle-Initial’ are all elementary items.
One of COBOL’s strengths is the wide variety of data files it is capable of accessing. GnuCOBOL programs, like those created with other COBOL implementations, need to have the structure of any files they will be reading and/or writing described to them. The highest-level characteristic of a file’s structure is defined by specifying the organization of the file, as follows:
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIALThese are files with the simplest of all internal structures. Their contents are structured simply as a series of identically- or differently-sized data records, each terminated by a special end-of-record delimiter character. An ASCII line-feed character (hexadecimal 0A) is the end-of-record delimiter character used by any UNIX or pseudo-UNIX (MinGW, Cygwin, OSX) GnuCOBOL build. A truly native Windows build would use a carriage-return, line-feed (hexadecimal 0D0A) sequence.
Records must be read from or written to these files in a purely sequential manner. The only way to read (or write) record number 100 would be to have read (or written) records number 1 through 99 first.
When the file is written to by a GnuCOBOL program, the delimiter sequence will be automatically appended to each data record as it is written to the file. A WRITE (see WRITE) to this type of file will be done as if a BEFORE ADVANCING 1 LINE clause were specified on the WRITE, if no ADVANCING clause is coded.
When the file is read, the GnuCOBOL runtime system will strip the trailing delimiter sequence from each record. The data will be padded (on the right) with spaces if the data just read is shorter than the area described for data records in the program. If the data is too long, it will be truncated and the excess will be lost.
These files should not be defined to contain any exact binary data fields because the contents of those fields could inadvertently have the end-of-record sequence as part of their values — this would confuse the runtime system when reading the file, and it would interpret that value as an actual end-of-record sequence.
LINE ADVANCINGThese are files with an internal structure similar to that of a line sequential file. These files are defined (without an explicit ORGANIZATION specification) using the LINE ADVANCING clause on their SELECT statement (see SELECT).
When this kind of file is written to by a GnuCOBOL program, an end-of-record delimiter sequence will be automatically added to each data record as it is written to the file. A WRITE to this type of file will be done as if an AFTER ADVANCING 1 LINE clause were specified on the WRITE, if no ADVANCING clause is coded.
Like line sequential files, these files should not be defined to contain any exact binary data fields because the contents of those fields could inadvertently have the end-of-record sequence as part of their values — this would confuse the runtime system when reading the file, and it would interpret that value as an actual end-of-record sequence.
ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIALThese files also have a simple internal structure. Their contents are structured simply as an arbitrarily-long sequence of data characters. This sequence of characters will be treated as a series of fixed-length records simply by logically splitting the sequence of characters up into fixed-length segments, each as long as the maximum record size defined in the program. There are no special end-of-record delimiter characters in the file and when the file is written to by a GnuCOBOL program, no delimiter sequence is appended to the data.
Records in this type of file are all the same physical length, except possibly for the very last record in the file, which may be shorter than the others. If variable-length logical records are defined to the program, the space occupied by each physical record in the file will occupy the space described by the longest record description in the program.
So, if a file contains 1275 characters of data, and a program defines the structure of that file as containing 100-character records, then the file contents will consist of twelve (12) 100-character records with a final record containing only 75 characters.
It would appear that it should be possible to locate and process any record in the file directly simply by calculating its starting character position based upon the program-defined record size. Even so, however, records must be still be read or written to these files in a purely sequential manner. The only way to read (or write) record number 100 would be to have read (or written) records number 1 through 99 first.
When the file is read, the data is transferred into the program exactly as it exists in the file. In the event that a short record is read as the very last record, that record will be padded (to the right) with spaces.
Care must be taken that programs reading such a file describe records whose length is exactly the same as that used by the program that created the file. For example, the following shows the contents of a SEQUENTIAL file created by a program that wrote five 6-character records to it. The ‘A’, ‘B’, … values reflect the records that were written to the file:
Now, assume that another program reads this file, but describes 10-character records rather than 6. Here are the records that program will read:
There may be times where this is exactly what you were looking for. More often than not, however, this is not desirable behaviour. Suggestion: use a copybook to describe the record layouts of any file; this guarantees that multiple programs accessing that file will “see” the same record sizes and layouts by coding a COPY statement (see COPY) to import the record layout(s) rather than hand-coding them.
These files can contain exact binary data fields. Because there is no character sequence that constitutes an end-of-record delimiter, the contents of record fields are irrelevant to the reading process.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVEThe contents of these files consist of a series of fixed-length data records prefixed with a four-byte record header. The record header contains the length of the data, in bytes. The byte-count does not include the four-byte record header.
Records in this type of file are all the same physical length. If variable-length logical records are defined to the program, the space occupied by each physical record in the file will occupy the maximum possible space, and the logical record length field will contain the number of bytes of data in the record that are actually in use.
This file organization was defined to accommodate either sequential or random processing. With a RELATIVE file, it is possible to read or write record 100 directly, without having to have first read or written records 1-99. The GnuCOBOL runtime system uses the program-defined maximum record size to calculate a relative byte position in the file where the record header and data begin, and then transfers the necessary data to or from the program.
When the file is written by a GnuCOBOL program, no delimiter sequence is appended to the data, but a record-length field is added to the beginning of each physical record.
When the file is read, the data is transferred into the program exactly as it exists in the file.
Care must be taken that programs reading such a file describe records whose length is exactly the same as that used by the programs that created the file. It won’t end well if the GnuCOBOL runtime library interprets a four-byte ASCII character string as a record length when it transfers data from the file into the program!
Suggestion: use a copybook to describe the record layouts of any file; this guarantees that multiple programs accessing that file will “see” the same record sizes and layouts by coding a COPY statement (see COPY) to import the record layout(s) rather than hand-coding them.
These files can contain exact binary data fields. The contents of record fields are irrelevant to the reading process as there is no end-of-record delimiter.
ORGANIZATION INDEXEDThis is the most advanced file structure available to GnuCOBOL programs. It’s not possible to describe the physical structure of such files because that structure will vary depending upon which advanced file-management facility was included into the GnuCOBOL build you will be using (Berkeley Database [BDB], VBISAM, etc.). We will — instead — discuss the logical structure of the file.
There will be multiple structures stored for an INDEXED file. The first will be a data component, which may be thought of as being similar to the internal structure of a relative file. Data records may not, however, be directly accessed by their record number as would be the case with a relative file, nor may they be processed sequentially by their physical sequence in the file.
The remaining structures will be one or more index components. An index component is a data structure that (somehow) enables the contents of a field, called a primary key, within each data record (a customer number, an employee number, a product code, a name, etc.) to be converted to a record number so that the data record for any given primary key value can be directly read, written and/or deleted. Additionally, the index data structure is defined in such a manner as to allow the file to be processed sequentially, record-by-record, in ascending sequence of the primary key field values. Whether this index structure exists as a binary-searchable tree structure (b-tree), an elaborate hash structure or something else is pretty much irrelevant to the programmer — the behaviour of the structure will be as it was just described. The actual mechanism used will depend upon the advanced file-management package was included into your GnuCOBOL implementation when it was built.
The runtime system will not allow two records to be written to an indexed file with the same primary key value.
The capability exists for an additional field to be defined as what is known as an alternate key. Alternate key fields behave just like primary keys, allowing both direct and sequential access to record data based upon the alternate key field values, with one exception. That exception is the fact that alternate keys may be allowed to have duplicate values, depending upon how the alternate key field is described to the GnuCOBOL compiler.
There may be any number of alternate keys, but each key field comes with a disk space penalty as well as an execution time penalty. As the number of alternate key fields increases, it will take longer and longer to write and/or modify records in the file.
These files can contain exact binary data fields. The contents of record fields are irrelevant to the reading process as there is no end-of-record delimiter.
All files are initially described to a GnuCOBOL program using a SELECT statement (see SELECT). In addition to defining a name by which the file will be referenced within the program, the SELECT statement will specify the name and path by which the file will be known to the operating system along with its organization, locking and sharing attributes.
A file description in the FILE SECTION (see FILE SECTION) will define the structure of records within the file, including whether or not variable-length records are possible and, if so, what the minimum and maximum length might be. In addition, the file description entry can specify file I/O block sizes.
Other programming languages have arrays; COBOL has tables. They’re basically the same thing. There are two special statements that exist in the COBOL language — SEARCH and SEARCH ALL — that make finding data in a table easy.
SEARCH searches a table sequentially, stopping only when either a table entry matching one of any number of search conditions is found, or when all table entries have been checked against the search criteria and none matched any of those criteria.
SEARCH ALL performs an extremely fast search against a table sorted by a key field contained in each table entry. The algorithm used for such a search is a binary search. The algorithm ensures that only a small number of entries in the table need to be checked in order to find a desired entry or to determine that the desired entry doesn’t exist in the table. The larger the table, the more effective this search becomes. For example, a binary search of a table containing 32,768 entries will locate a particular entry or determine the entry doesn’t exist by looking at no more than fifteen (15) entries! The algorithm is explained in detail in the documentation of the SEARCH ALL statement (see SEARCH ALL).
Finally, COBOL has the ability to perform in-place sorts of the data that is found in a table.
The COBOL language includes a powerful SORT statement that can sort large amounts of data according to arbitrarily complex key structures. This data may originate from within the program or may be contained in one or more external files. The sorted data may be written automatically to one or more output files or may be processed, record-by-record in the sorted sequence.
A companion statement — MERGE — can combine the contents of multiple files together, provided those files are all pre-sorted in a similar manner according to the same key structure. The resulting output will consist of the contents of all of the input files, merged together and sequenced according to the common key structure(s). The output generated by a MERGE statement may be written automatically to one or more output files or may be processed internally by the program.
A special form of the SORT statement also exists just to sort the data that resides in a table. This is particularly useful if you wish to use SEARCH ALL against the table.
There have been programming languages designed specifically for the processing of text strings, and there have been programming languages designed for the sole purpose of performing high-powered numerical computations. Most programming languages fall somewhere in the middle.
COBOL is no exception, although it does include some very powerful string manipulation capabilities; GnuCOBOL actually has even more string-manipulation capabilities than many other COBOL implementations. The following summarizes GnuCOBOL’s string-processing capabilities:
CONCATENATE intrinsic function (see CONCATENATE).
STRING statement (see STRING).
LOCALE-TIME intrinsic function (see LOCALE-TIME).
LOCALE-DATE intrinsic function (see LOCALE-DATE).
CHAR intrinsic function (see CHAR). Add 1 to argument before invoking the function; the description of the CHAR intrinsic function presents a technique utilizing the MOVE statement that will accomplish the same thing without the need of adding 1 to the numeric argument value first.
LOWER-CASE intrinsic function (see LOWER-CASE).
C$TOLOWER built-in system subroutine (see C$TOLOWER).
CBL_TOLOWER built-in system subroutine (see CBL_TOLOWER).
UPPER-CASE intrinsic function (see UPPER-CASE).
C$TOUPPER built-in system subroutine (see C$TOUPPER).
CBL_TOUPPER built-in system subroutine (see CBL_TOUPPER).
C$PRINTABLE built-in system subroutine (see C$PRINTABLE).
ORD intrinsic function (see ORD). Subtract 1 from the result; the description of the ORD intrinsic function presents a technique utilizing the MOVE statement that will accomplish the same thing without the need of adding 1 to the numeric argument value first.
INSPECT statement (see INSPECT) with the TALLYING clause.
LENGTH intrinsic function (see LENGTH).
BYTE-LENGTH intrinsic function (see BYTE-LENGTH).
MOVE statement (see MOVE) with picture-symbol editing applied to the receiving field:
C$JUSTIFY built-in system subroutine (see C$JUSTIFY).
INSPECT statement (see INSPECT) with the CONVERTING.
TRANSFORM statement (see TRANSFORM).
SUBSTITUTE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE).
SUBSTITUTE-CASE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE-CASE).
UNSTRING statement (see UNSTRING).
TRIM intrinsic function (see TRIM).
MOVE statement (see MOVE) with a reference modifier on the “receiving” field (see Reference Modifiers).
INSPECT statement (see INSPECT) with a REPLACING clause.
SUBSTITUTE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE).
SUBSTITUTE-CASE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE-CASE).
SUBSTITUTE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE).
SUBSTITUTE-CASE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE-CASE).
The COBOL2002 standard formalizes extensions to the COBOL language that allow for the definition and processing of text-based screens, as is a typical function on mainframe and midframe computers as well as on many point-of-sale (i.e. “cash register”) systems. GnuCOBOL implements virtually all the screen-handling features described by COBOL2002.
These features allow fields to be displayed at specific row/column positions, various colors and video attributes to be assigned to screen fields and the pressing of specific function keys (F1, F2, …) to be detectable. All of this takes place through the auspices of the SCREEN SECTION (see SCREEN SECTION) and special formats of the ACCEPT statement (see ACCEPT) and the DISPLAY statement (see DISPLAY).
The COBOL2002 standard, and therefore GnuCOBOL, only covers textual user interface (TUI) screens (those comprised of ASCII characters presented using a variety of visual attributes) and not the more-advanced graphical user interface (GUI) screen design and processing capabilities built into most modern operating systems. There are subroutine-based packages available that can do full GUI presentation — most of which may be called by GnuCOBOL programs, with a moderate research time investment (Tcl/Tk, for example) — but none are currently included with GnuCOBOL.
A Sample Screen Produced by a GnuCOBOL Program:
================================================================================
GCic (2014/01/02 11:24) GnuCOBOL 2.1 23NOV2013 Interactive Compilation
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
: Filename: GCic.cbl :
: Folder: E:\Programs\GCic\2013-11-23 :
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Set/Clr Switches Via F1-F9; Set Config Via F12; ENTER Key Compiles; ESC Quits
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
: F1 Assume WITH DEBUGGING MODE F6 >"FUNCTION" Is Optional : Current :
: F2 Procedure+Statement Trace F7 >Enable All Warnings : Config: :
: F3 Make a Library (DLL) F8 Source Is Free-Format : DEFAULT :
: F4 Execute If Compilation OK F9 >No COMP/BINARY Truncation : :
: F5 Listing Off : :
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Extra "cobc" Switches, If Any ("-save-temps=xxx" Prevents Listings):
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
: ____________________________________________________________________________ :
: ____________________________________________________________________________ :
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Program Execution Arguments, If Any:
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
: ____________________________________________________________________________ :
: ____________________________________________________________________________ :
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
GCic for Windows/MinGW Copyright (C) 2009-2014, Gary L. Cutler, GPL
================================================================================
The above screen was produced by the GnuCOBOL Interactive Compiler, or GCic. See GCic in GnuCOBOL Sample Programs, for the source and cross-reference listing of this program. PDF versions of this document will include an actual graphical image of this sample screen.
Screens are defined in the screen section of the data division. Once defined, screens are used at run-time via the ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements.
GnuCOBOL supports the following visual attribute specifications in the SCREEN SECTION (see SCREEN SECTION):
Eight (8) different colors may be specified for both the background (screen) and foreground (text) color of any row/column position on the screen. Colors are specified by number, although a copybook supplied with all GnuCOBOL distributions (screenio.cpy) defines COB-COLOR-xxxxxx names for the various colors so they may be specified as a more meaningful name rather than a number. The eight colors, by number, with the constant names defined in screenio.cpy, are as follows:
BlackCOB-COLOR-BLACK
BlueCOB-COLOR-BLUE
GreenCOB-COLOR-GREEN
CyanCOB-COLOR-CYAN
RedCOB-COLOR-RED
MagentaCOB-COLOR-MAGENTA
YellowCOB-COLOR-YELLOW
WhiteCOB-COLOR-WHITE
There are three possible brightness levels supported for text — lowlight (dim), normal and highlight (bright). Not all GnuCOBOL implementations will support all three (some treat lowlight the same as normal). The deciding factor as to whether two or three levels are supported lies with the version of the curses package that is being used. This is a utility screen-IO package that is included into the GnuCOBOL run-time library when the GnuCOBOL software is built.
As a general rule of thumb, Windows implementations support two levels while Unix ones support all three.
This too is a video feature that is dependent upon the curses package built into your version of GnuCOBOL. If blinking is enabled in that package, text displayed in fields defined in the screen section as being blinking will endlessly cycle between the brightest possible setting (highlight) and an “invisible” setting where the text color matches that of the field background color. A Windows build, which generally uses the “pcurses” package, will uses a brighter-than-normal background color to signify “blinking”.
This video attribute simply swaps the foreground and background colors and display options.
It is possible, if supported by the curses package being used, to draw borders on the top, left and/or bottom edges of a field.
If desired, screen fields used as input fields may defined as “secure” fields, where each input character (regardless of what was actually typed) will appear as an asterisk (*) character. The actual character whose key was pressed will still be stored into the field in the program, however. This is very useful for password or account number fields.
Input fields may have any character used as a fill character. These fill characters provide a visual indication of the size of the input field, and will automatically be transformed into spaces when the input field is processed by the program. If no such character is defined for an input field, an underscore (‘_’) will be assumed.
GnuCOBOL includes an implementation of the Report Writer Control System, or RWCS. The reportwriter module is now fully implemented as of version 3.0. This is a standardized, optional add-on feature to the COBOL language which automates much of the mechanics involved in the generation of printed reports by:
SORT statement (see SORT) keys — have changed. This is known as a control break. The RWCS can automatically perform the following reporting actions when a control break occurs:
The REPORT SECTION (see REPORT SECTION) documentation explores the description of reports and the PROCEDURE DIVISION (see PROCEDURE DIVISION) chapter documents the various language statements that actually produce reports. Before reading these, you might find it helpful to read Report Writer Usage, which is dedicated to putting the pieces together for you.
There are three ways in which data division data gets initialized.
SPACES.
ZERO.
VALUE (see VALUE) clause in their definition will be initialized to that specific value.
The various sections of the data division each have their own rules as to when the actions described above will occur — consult the documentation on those sections for additional information.
These default initialization rules can vary quite substantially from one COBOL implementation to another. For example, it is quite common for data division storage to be initialized to all binary zeros except for those data items where VALUE clauses are present. Take care when working with applications originally developed for another COBOL implementation to ensure that GnuCOBOL’s default initialization rules won’t prove disruptive.
INITIALIZE statement (see INITIALIZE) to initialise any group or elementary data item at any time. This statement provides far more initialization options than just the simple rules stated above.
ALLOCATE statement (see ALLOCATE) statement is used to allocate a data item or to simply allocate an area of storage of a size specified on the ALLOCATE, that allocation may occur with or without initialization, as per the programmer’s needs.
Syntax of the GnuCOBOL language will be described in special syntax diagrams using the following syntactical-description techniques:
Reserved words of the COBOL language will appear in UPPER-CASE. When they appear underlined, as this one is, they are required reserved words.
When reserved words appear without underlining, as this one is, they are optional; such reserved words are available in the language syntax merely to improve readability — their presence or absence has no effect upon the program.
When only a portion of a reserved word is underlined, it indicates that the word may either be coded in its full form or may be abbreviated to the portion that is underlined.
Generic terms representing user-defined substitutable items will be shown entirely in lower-case in syntax diagrams. When such items are referenced in text, they will appear as substitutable-items.
Items appearing in Mixed Case within a syntax diagram represent complex clauses of other syntax elements that may appear in that position. Some COBOL syntax gets quite complicated, and using a convention such as this significantly reduces the complexity of a syntax diagram. When such items are referenced in text, they will appear as Complex-Syntax-Clause.
Square bracket meta characters on syntax diagrams document language syntax that is optional. The [] characters themselves should not be coded. If a syntax diagram contains ‘a [b] c’, the ‘a’ and ‘c’ syntax elements are mandatory but the ‘b’ element is optional.
Vertical bar meta characters on syntax diagrams document simple choices. The | character itself should not be coded. If a syntax diagram contains ‘a|b|c’, exactly one of the items ‘a’, ‘b’ or ‘c’ must be selected.
A vertical list of items, bounded by multiple brace characters, is another way of signifying a choice between a series of items where exactly one item must be selected. This form is used to show choices when one or more of the selections is more complex than just a single word, or when there are too many choices to present horizontally with ‘|’ meta characters.
A vertical list of items, bounded by multiple vertical bar characters, signifies a choice between a series of items where one or more of the choices could be selected.
The ... meta character sequence signifies that the syntax element immediately preceding it may be repeated. The ... sequence itself should not be coded. If a syntax diagram contains a b... c, syntax element ‘a’ must be followed by at least one ‘b’ element (possibly more) and the entire sequence must be terminated by a ‘c’ syntax element.
The braces (‘{’ and ‘}’) meta characters may be used to group a sequence of syntax elements together so that they may be treated as a single entity. The {} characters themselves should not be coded. These are typically used in combination with the ‘|’ or ‘...’ meta characters.
Any of these characters appearing within a syntax diagram are to be interpreted literally, and are characters that must be coded — where allowed — in the statement whose format is being described. Note that a ‘.’ character is a literal character that must be coded on a statement whereas a ‘...’ symbol is the meta character sequence described above.
Prior to the COBOL2002 standard, source statements in COBOL programs were structured around 80-column punched cards. This means that each source line in a COBOL program consisted of five different “areas”, defined by their column number(s).
As of the COBOL2002 standard, a second mode now exists for COBOL source code statements — in this mode of operation, COBOL statements may each be up to 255 characters long, with no specific requirements as to what should appear in which columns.
Of course, in keeping with the long-standing COBOL tradition of maintaining backwards compatibility with older standards, programmers (and, of course, compliant COBOL compilers) are capable of working in either mode. It is even possible to switch back and forth in the same program. The terms Fixed Format Mode and Free Format Mode are used to refer to these two modes of source code formatting.
The GnuCOBOL compiler (cobc) supports both of these source line format modes, defaulting to Fixed Format Mode lacking any other information.
The compiler can be instructed to operate in either mode in any of the following four ways:
SOURCEFORMAT AS FIXED and SOURCEFORMAT AS FREE clauses of the >>SET CDF directive (see >>SET) within your source code to switch to Fixed or Free Format Mode, respectively.
>>FORMAT IS FIXED and FORMAT IS FREE clauses of the >>DEFINE CDF directive (see >>DEFINE) within your source code to switch to Fixed or Free Format Mode, respectively.
>>SOURCE CDF directive (see >>SOURCE) to switch to Free Format Mode (>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE) or Fixed Format Mode (>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED.
Using methods 2-4 above, you may switch back and forth between the two formats at will.
The last three options above are all equivalent; all three are supported by GnuCOBOL so that source code compatibility may be maintained with a wide variety of other COBOL implementations. With all three, if the compiler is currently in Fixed Format Mode, the >> must begin in column 8 or beyond, provided no part of the directive extends past column 72. If the compiler is currently in Free Format Mode, the >> may appear in any column, provided no part of the directive extends past column 255.
Depending upon which source format mode the compiler is in, you will need to follow various rules for the format mode currently in effect. These rules are presented in the upcoming paragraphs.
The following discussion presents the various components of every GnuCOBOL source line record when the compiler is operating in Fixed Format Mode. Remember that this is the default mode for the GnuCOBOL compiler.
Sequence Number Area
Historically, back in the days when punched-cards were used to submit COBOL program source to a COBOL compiler, this part of a COBOL statement was reserved for a six-digit sequence number. While the contents of this area are ignored by COBOL compilers, it existed so that a program actually punched on 80-character cards could — if the card deck were dropped on the floor — be run through a card sorter machine and restored to its proper sequence. Of course, this isn’t necessary today; if truth be told, it hasn’t been necessary for a long time.
See Marking Changes in Programs, for discussion of a valuable use to which the sequence number area may be put today.
Indicator Area
Column 7 serves as an indicator in which one of five possible values will appear — space, D (or d), - (dash), / or *. The meanings of these characters are as follows:
No special meaning — this is the normal character that will appear in this area.
The line contains a valid GnuCOBOL statement that is normally treated as a comment unless the program is being compiled in debugging mode.
The line is a comment.
The line is a comment that will also force a page eject in the compilation listing. While GnuCOBOL will honour such a line as a comment, it will not form-feed any generated listing.
The line is a continuation of the previous line. These are needed only when an alphanumeric literal (quoted character string), reserved word or user-defined word are being split across lines.
Area A
Language DIVISION, SECTION and paragraph section headers must b egin in Area A, as must the level numbers 01, 77 in data description entries and the FD and SD file and SORT description headers.
Area B
All other COBOL programming language components are coded in these columns.
Program Name Area
This is another obsolete area of COBOL statements. This part of every statement also hails back to the day when programs were punched on cards; it was expected that the name of the program (or at least the first 8 characters of it) would be punched here so that — if a dropped COBOL source deck contained more than one program — that handy card sorter machine could be used to first separate the cards by program name and then sort them by sequence number. Today’s COBOL compilers (including GnuCOBOL) simply ignore anything past column 72.
See Marking Changes in Programs, for discussion of a valuable use to which the program name area may be put today.
[ IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PROGRAM-ID|FUNCTION-ID. name-1 [ Program-Options ] .
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
[ ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ CONFIGURATION SECTION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ SOURCE-COMPUTER. Compilation-Computer-Specification . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ OBJECT-COMPUTER. Execution-Computer-Specification . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ REPOSITORY. Function-Specification... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~
[ SPECIAL-NAMES. Program-Configuration-Specification . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ FILE-CONTROL. General-File-Description... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ I-O-CONTROL. File-Buffering-Specification... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
[ DATA DIVISION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ FILE SECTION. Detailed-File-Description... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. Permanent-Data-Definition... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ LOCAL-STORAGE SECTION. Temporary-Data-Definition... . ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ LINKAGE SECTION. Subprogram-Argument-Description... . ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ REPORT SECTION. Report-Description... . ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ SCREEN SECTION. Screen-Layout-Definition... . ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
PROCEDURE DIVISION [ { USING Subprogram-Argument... } ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~~ }
{ CHAINING Main-Program-Argument... }
~~~~~~~~
[ RETURNING identifier-1 ] .
[ DECLARATIVES. ] ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ Event-Handler-Routine... . ]
[ END DECLARATIVES. ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
General-Program-Logic
[ Nested-Subprogram... ]
[ END PROGRAM|FUNCTION name-1 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Each program consists of up to four Divisions (major groupings of sections, paragraphs and descriptive or procedural coding that all relate to a common purpose), named Identification, Environment, Data and Procedure.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. header is always optional.
SOURCE-COMPUTER and OBJECT-COMPUTER, for example). Each of these paragraphs serves a specific purpose. If no code is required for the purpose one of the paragraphs serves, the entire paragraph may be omitted.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. header itself may be omitted.
DATA DIVISION. header itself may be omitted.
DECLARATIVES. and END DECLARATIVES. lines may be omitted.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION statement is optional.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION statements. The final program in such a source code file need not have an END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION statement.
END PROGRAM A. or END FUNCTION A. statement. For now, that’s all that will be said about nesting. See Independent vs Contained vs Nested Subprograms, for more information.
The following information describes how comments may be embedded into GnuCOBOL program source to provide documentation.
| Comment Type | Source Mode — Description |
|---|---|
| Blank Lines | FIXED — Blank lines may be inserted as desired.
FREE — Blank lines may be inserted as desired. |
| Full-line comments | FIXED — An entire source line will be treated as a comment (and will be ignored by the compiler) by coding an asterisk (‘*’) in column seven (7).
FREE — An entire source line will be treated as a comment (and will be ignored by the compiler) by coding the sequence ‘*>’, starting in any column, as the first non-blank characters on the line. |
| Full-line comments with form-feed | FIXED — An entire source line will be treated as a comment by coding a slash (‘/’) in column seven (7). Many COBOL compilers will also issue a form-feed in the program listing so that the ‘/’ line is at the top of a new page. The GnuCOBOL compiler does not support this form-feed behaviour.
The GnuCOBOL Interactive Compiler, or GCic, does support this form-feed behaviour when it generates program source listings! See GCic in GnuCOBOL Sample Programs, for the source and cross-reference listing (produced by GCic) of this program — you can see the effect of ‘/’ there. FREE — There is no Free Source Mode equivalent to ‘/’. |
| Partial-line comments | FIXED — Any text following the character sequence ‘*>’ on a source line will be treated as a comment. The ‘*’ must appear in column seven (7) or beyond.
FREE — Any text following the character sequence ‘*>’ on a source line will be treated as a comment. The ‘*’ may appear in any column. |
| Comments that may be treated as code, typically for debugging purposes | FIXED — By coding a ‘D’ in column 7
(upper- or lower-case), an otherwise valid GnuCOBOL source line will be treated as a comment by the compiler.
FREE — By specifying the character sequence ‘>>D’ (upper- or lower-case) as the first non-blank characters on a source line, an otherwise valid GnuCOBOL source line will be treated as a comment by the compiler. Debugging statements may be compiled either by specifying the -fdebugging-line switch on the GnuCOBOL compiler or by adding the |
Literals are constant values that will not change during the execution of a program. There are two fundamental types of literals — numeric and alphanumeric.
9.92E25, representing 9.92 x 1025 (10 raised to the 25th power) or 5.7E-14, representing 5.7 x 10-14 (10 raised to the -14th power). Both the mantissa (the number before the ‘E’) and the exponent (the number after the ‘E’) may be explicitly specified as positive (with a ‘+’), negative (with a ‘-’) or unsigned (and therefore implicitly positive). A floating-point literals value must be within the range -1.7 x 10308 to +1.7 x 10308 with no more than 15 decimal digits of precision.
L"characters".
H# or X# ‘0’ - ‘F’.
B" character ".
BX" hex character ".
N" character " or NC" character ".
NX" character ".
An alphanumeric literal is not valid for use in arithmetic expressions unless it is first converted to its numeric computational equivalent; there are three numeric conversion intrinsic functions built into GnuCOBOL that can perform this conversion — NUMVAL (see NUMVAL), NUMVAL-C (see NUMVAL-C) and NUMVAL-F (see NUMVAL-F).
Alphanumeric literals may take any of the following forms:
Alphanumeric literals too long to fit on a single line may be continued to the next line in one of two ways:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123
01 LONG-LITERAL-VALUE-DEMO PIC X(60) VALUE "This is a long l
- "ong literal that
- " must be continu
- "ed.".
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123
01 LONG-LITERAL-VALUE-DEMO PIC X(60) VALUE "This is a" &
" long literal that must " &
"be continued.".
If your program is using Free Format Mode, there’s less need to continue long alphanumeric literals because statements may be as long as 255 characters.
Numeric literals may be split across lines just as alphanumeric literals are, using either of the above techniques and both reserved and user-defined words can be split across lines too (using the first technique). The continuation of numeric literals and user-defined/reserved words is provided merely to provide compatibility with older COBOL versions and programs, but should not be used with new programs — it just makes for ugly-looking programs.
Figurative constants are reserved words that may be used as literals anywhere the figurative constants value could be interpreted as an arbitrarily long sequence of the characters in question. When a specific length is required, such as would be the case with an argument to a subprogram, a figurative constant may not be used. Thus, the following are valid uses of figurative constants:
05 FILLER PIC 9(10) VALUE ZEROS. ... MOVE SPACES TO Employee-Name
But this is not:
CALL "SUBPGM" USING SPACES
The following are the GnuCOBOL figurative constants and their respective equivalent values.
ZEROThis figurative constant has a value of numeric 0 (zero). ZEROS and ZEROES are both synonyms of ZERO.
SPACEThis figurative constant has a value of one or more space characters. SPACES is a synonym of SPACE.
QUOTEThis figurative constant has a value of one or more double-quote characters ("). QUOTES is a synonym of QUOTE.
LOW-VALUEThis figurative constant has a value of one or more of whatever character occupies the lowest position in the program’s collating sequence as defined in the OBJECT-COMPUTER (see OBJECT-COMPUTER) paragraph or — if no such specification was made — in whatever default character set the program is using (typically, this is the ASCII character set). LOW-VALUES is a synonym of LOW-VALUE.
When the character set in use is ASCII with no collating sequence modifications, the LOW-VALUES figurative constant value is the ASCII NUL character. Because character sets can be redefined, however, you should not rely on this fact. Use the NULL figurative constant instead.
HIGH-VALUEThis figurative constant has a value of one or more of whatever character occupies the highest position in the program’s collating sequence as defined in the OBJECT-COMPUTER paragraph or — if no such specification was made — in whatever default character set the program is using (typically, this is the ASCII character set). HIGH-VALUES is a synonym of HIGH-VALUE.
NULLA character comprised entirely of zero-bits (regardless of the programs collating sequence).
Programmers may create their own figurative constants via the SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS (see Symbolic-Characters-Clause) clause of the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph.
The use of comma characters can cause confusion to a COBOL compiler if the DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA clause is used in the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph, as might be the case in Europe. The following statement, which calls a subroutine passing it two arguments (the numeric constants 1 and 2):
Would — with DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA in effect — actually be interpreted as a subroutine call with 1 argument (the non-integer numeric literal whose value is 1 and 2 tenths). For this reason, it is best to always follow a comma with a space.
The rules for where and when periods are needed in the procedure division are somewhat complicated. See Use of Periods, for the details.
Through the CALL statement, COBOL programs may invoke other COBOL programs serving as subprograms. This is quite similar to cross-program linkage capabilities provided by other languages. In GnuCOBOL’s case, the CALL facility is powerful enough to be tailored to the point where a GnuCOBOL program can communicate with operating system, database management and run-time library APIs, even if they weren’t written in COBOL themselves. See GnuCOBOL Main Programs CALLing C Subprograms, for an example of how a GnuCOBOL program could invoke a C-language subprogram, passing information back and forth between the two.
The fact that GnuCOBOL supports a full-featured two-way interface with C-language programs means that — even if you cannot access a library API directly — you could always do so via a small C “wrapper” program that is CALLed by a GnuCOBOL program.
COBOL uses parenthesis to specify the subscripts used to reference table entries (tables in COBOL are what other programming languages refer to as arrays).
For example, observe the following data structure which defines a 4 column by 3 row grid of characters:
01 GRID.
05 GRID-ROW OCCURS 3 TIMES.
10 GRID-COLUMN OCCURS 4 TIMES.
15 GRID-CHARACTER PIC X(1).
If the structure contains the following grid of characters:
A B C D E F G H I J K L
Then GRID-CHARACTER (2, 3) references the ‘G’ and GRID-CHARACTER (3, 2) references the ‘J’.
Subscripts may be specified as numeric (integer) literals, numeric (integer) data items, data items created with any of the picture-less integer USAGE (see USAGE) specifications, USAGE INDEX data items or arithmetic expressions resulting in a non-zero integer value.
In the above examples, a comma is used as a separator character between the two subscript values; semicolons (;) are also valid subscript separator characters, as are spaces! The use of a comma or semicolon separator in such a situation is technically optional, but by convention most COBOL programmers use one or the other. The use of no separator character (other than a space) is not recommended, even though it is syntactically correct, as this practice can lead to programmer-unfriendly code. It isn’t too difficult to read and understand GRID-CHARACTER(2 3), but it’s another story entirely when trying to comprehend GRID-CHARACTER(I + 1 J / 3) (instead of GRID-CHARACTER(I + 1, J / 3)). The compiler accepts it, but too much of this would make my head hurt.
COBOL allows data names to be duplicated within a program, provided references to those data names may be made in such a manner as to make those references unique through a process known as qualification.
To see qualification at work, observe the following segments of two data records defined in a COBOL program:
01 EMPLOYEE. 01 CUSTOMER.
05 MAILING-ADDRESS. 05 MAILING-ADDRESS.
10 STREET PIC X(35). 10 STREET PIC X(35).
10 CITY PIC X(15). 10 CITY PIC X(15).
10 STATE PIC X(2). 10 STATE PIC X(2).
10 ZIP-CODE. 10 ZIP-CODE.
15 ZIP-CODE-5 PIC 9(5). 15 ZIP-CODE-5 PIC 9(5).
15 FILLER PIC X(4). 15 FILLER PIC X(4).
Now, let’s deal with the problem of setting the CITY portion of an EMPLOYEEs MAILING-ADDRESS to ‘Philadelphia’. Clearly, MOVE 'Philadelphia' TO CITY cannot work because the compiler will be unable to determine which of the two CITY fields you are referring to.
In an attempt to correct the problem, we could qualify the reference to CITY as MOVE 'Philadelphia' TO CITY OF MAILING-ADDRESS.
Unfortunately that too is insufficient because it still insufficiently specifies which CITY is being referenced. To truly identify which specific CITY you want, you’d have to code MOVE 'Philadelphia' TO CITY OF MAILING-ADDRESS OF EMPLOYEE.
Now there can be no confusion as to which CITY is being changed. Fortunately, you don’t need to be quite so specific; COBOL allows intermediate and unnecessary qualification levels to be omitted. This allows MOVE 'Philadelphia' TO CITY OF EMPLOYEE to do the job nicely.
If you need to qualify a reference to a table, do so by coding something like identifier-1 OF identifier-2 ( subscript(s) ).
The reserved word IN may be used in lieu of OF.
identifier-1 [ OF|IN identifier-2 ] [ (subscript...) ] (start:[ length ])
~~ ~~
intrinsic-function-reference (start:[ length ])
The COBOL 1985 standard introduced the concept of a reference modifier to facilitate references to only a portion of a data item; GnuCOBOL fully supports reference modification.
The start value indicates the starting character position being referenced (character position values start with 1, not 0 as is the case in some programming languages) and length specifies how many characters are wanted.
If no length is specified, a value equivalent to the remaining character positions from start to the end of identifier-1 or to the end of the value returned by the function will be assumed.
Both start and length may be specified as integer numeric literals, integer numeric data items or arithmetic expressions with an integer value.
Here are a few examples:
CUSTOMER-LAST-NAME (1:3)References the first three characters of CUSTOMER-LAST-NAME.
CUSTOMER-LAST-NAME (4:)References all character positions of CUSTOMER-LAST-NAME from the fourth onward.
FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE (5:2)References the current month as a 2-digit number in character form. See CURRENT-DATE, for more information.
Hex-Digits (Nibble + 1:1)Assuming that Nibble is a numeric data item with a value in the range 0-15, and Hex-Digits is a PIC X(16) item with a value of 0123456789ABCDEF, this converts that numeric value to a hexadecimal digit.
Table-Entry (6) (7:5)References characters 7 through 11 (5 characters in total) in the 6th occurrence of Table-Entry.
Reference modification may be used anywhere an identifier is legal, including serving as the receiving field of statements like MOVE (see MOVE), STRING (see STRING) and ACCEPT (see ACCEPT), to name a few.
Unary-Expression-1 { **|^ } Unary-Expression-2
{ *|/ }
{ +|- }
{ [ +|- ] { ( Arithmetic-Expression-1 ) } }
{ { [ LENGTH OF ] { identifier-1 } } }
{ { ~~~~~~ ~~ { literal-1 } } }
{ { { Function-Reference } } }
{ Arithmetic-Expression-2 }
Arithmetic expressions are formed using four categories of operations — exponentiation, multiplication & division, addition & subtraction, and sign specification.
In complex expressions composed of multiple operators and operands, a precedence of operation applies whereby those operations having a higher precedence are computed first before operations with a lower precedence.
As is the case in almost any other programming language, the programmer is always free to use pairs of parenthesis to enclose sub-expressions of complex expressions that are to be evaluated before other sub-expressions rather than let operator precedence dictate the sequence of evaluation.
In highest to lowest order of precedence, here is a discussion of each category of operation:
+ and - with a single argument)The unary “minus” (-) operator returns the arithmetic negation of its single argument, effectively returning as its value the product of its argument and -1.
The unary “plus” (+) operator returns the value of its single argument, effectively returning as its value the product of its argument and +1.
** or ^)The value of the left argument is raised to the power indicated by the right argument. Non-integer powers are allowed. The ^ and ** operators are both supported to provide compatibility with programs written for other COBOL implementations.
*) and division (/)The * operator computes the product of the left and right arguments while the / operator computes the value of the left argument divided by the value of the right argument. If the right argument has a value of zero, expression evaluation will be prematurely terminated before a value is generated. This may cause program failure at run-time.
A sequence of multiple 3rd-level operations (A * B / C, for example) will evaluate in strict left-to-right sequence if no parenthesis are used to control the order of evaluation.
+) or subtraction (+)The + operator calculates the sum of the left and right arguments while the - operator computes the value of the right argument subtracted from that of the left argument.
A sequence of multiple 4th-level operations (A - B + C, for example) will evaluate in strict left-to-right sequence if no parenthesis are used to control the order of evaluation.
The syntactical rules of COBOL, allowing a dash (-) character in data item names, can lead to some ambiguity.
01 C PIC 9 VALUE 5. 01 D PIC 9 VALUE 2. 01 C-D PIC 9 VALUE 7. 01 I PIC 9 VALUE 0. … COMPUTE I=C-D+1
The COMPUTE (see COMPUTE) statement will evaluate the arithmetic expression C-D+1 and then save that result in I.
What value will be stored in I? The number 4, which is the result of subtracting the value of D (2) from the value of C (5) and then adding 1? Or, will it be the number 8, which is the value of adding 1 to the value of data item C-D (7)?
The right answer is 8 — the value of data item C-D plus 1! Hopefully, that was the intended result.
The GnuCOBOL compiler actually went through the following decision-making logic when generating code for the COMPUTE Statement:
C-D defined? If so, use its value for the character sequence C-D.
C-D data item, then are there C and D data items? If not, the COMPUTE statement is in error. If there are, however, then code will be generated to subtract the value of D from C and add 1 to the result.
Had there been at least one space to the left and/or the right of the -, there would have been no ambiguity — the compiler would have been forced to use the individual C and D data items.
To avoid any possible ambiguity, as well as to improve program readability, it’s considered good COBOL programming practice to always code at least one space to both the left and right of every operator in arithmetic expressions as well as the = sign on a COMPUTE.
Here are some examples of how the precedence of operations affects the results of arithmetic expressions (all examples use numeric literals, to simplify the discussion).
| Expression | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3 * 4 + 1 | 13 | * has precedence over + |
| 4 * 2 ^ 3 - 10 | 22 | 2^3 is 8 (^ has precedence over *), times 4 is 32, minus 10 is 22. |
| (4 * 2) ^ 3 - 10 | 502 | Parenthesis provide for a recursive application of the arithmetic expression rules, effectively allowing you to alter the precedence of operations. 4 times 2 is 8 (the use of parenthesis “trumps” the exponentiation operator, so the multiplication happens first); 8 ^ 3 is 512, minus 10 is 502. |
| 5 / 2.5 + 7 * 2 - 1.15 | 15.35 | Integer and non-integer operands may be freely intermixed |
Of course, arithmetic expression operands may be numeric data items (any USAGE except POINTER or PROGRAM POINTER) as well as numeric literals.
Conditional expressions are expressions which identify the circumstances under which a program may take an action or cease taking an action. As such, conditional expressions produce a value of TRUE or FALSE.
There are seven types of conditional expressions, as discussed in the following sections.
These are the simplest of all conditions. Observe the following code:
05 SHIRT-SIZE PIC 99V9.
88 TINY VALUE 0 THRU 12.5
88 XS VALUE 13 THRU 13.5.
88 S VALUE 14, 14.5.
88 M VALUE 15, 15.5.
88 L VALUE 16, 16.5.
88 XL VALUE 17, 17.5.
88 XXL VALUE 18, 18.5.
88 XXXL VALUE 19, 19.5.
88 VERY-LARGE VALUE 20 THRU 99.9.
The condition names TINY, XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL and VERY-LARGE will have TRUE or FALSE values based upon the values within their parent data item (SHIRT-SIZE).
A program wanting to test whether or not the current SHIRT-SIZE value can be classified as XL could have that decision coded as a combined condition (the most complex type of conditional expression), as either:
IF SHIRT-SIZE = 17 OR SHIRT-SIZE = 17.5 - or - IF SHIRT-SIZE = 17 OR 17.5
Or it could simply utilize the condition name XL as follows:
IF XL
identifier-1 IS [ NOT ] { NUMERIC }
~~~ { ~~~~~~~ }
{ ALPHABETIC }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ALPHABETIC-LOWER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ALPHABETIC-UPPER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ OMITTED }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ class-name-1 }
Class conditions evaluate the type of data that is currently stored in a data item.
NUMERIC class test considers only the characters ‘0’, ‘1’, … , ‘9’ to be numeric; only a data item containing nothing but digits will pass a NUMERIC class test. Spaces, decimal points, commas, currency signs, plus signs, minus signs and any other characters except the digit characters will all fail NUMERIC class tests.
ALPHABETIC class test considers only upper-case letters, lower-case letters and spaces to be alphabetic in nature.
ALPHABETIC-LOWER and ALPHABETIC-UPPER class conditions consider only spaces and the respective type of letters to be acceptable in order to pass such a class test.
NOT option reverses the TRUE/FALSE value of the condition.
CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION specifications in the OBJECT-COMPUTER (see OBJECT-COMPUTER) paragraph.
USAGE (see USAGE) is either explicitly or implicitly defined as DISPLAY may be used in NUMERIC or any of the ALPHABETIC class conditions.
PIC A items with NUMERIC class conditions and the use of PIC 9 items with ALPHABETIC class conditions. GnuCOBOL has no such restrictions.
OMITTED class condition is used when it is necessary for a subprogram to determine whether or not a particular argument was passed to it. In such class conditions, identifier-1 must be a linkage section item defined on the USING clause of the subprograms PROCEDURE DIVISION header. See PROCEDURE DIVISION USING, for additional information.
The class-name-1 option allows you to test for a user-defined class. Here’s an example. First, assume the following SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) definition of the user-defined class ‘Hexadecimal’:
SPECIAL-NAMES.
CLASS Hexadecimal IS '0' THRU '9', 'A' THRU 'F', 'a' THRU 'f'.
Now observe the following code, which will execute the 150-Process-Hex-Value procedure if Entered-Value contains nothing but valid hexadecimal digits:
IF Entered-Value IS Hexadecimal
PERFORM 150-Process-Hex-Value
END-IF
identifier-1 IS [ NOT ] { POSITIVE }
~~~ { ~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEGATIVE }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ ZERO }
~~~~
Sign conditions evaluate the numeric state of a data item defined with a PICTURE (see PICTURE) and/or USAGE (see USAGE) that supports numeric values.
POSITIVE or NEGATIVE class condition will be TRUE only if the value of identifier-1 is strictly greater than or less than zero, respectively.
ZERO class condition can be passed only if the value of identifier-1 is exactly zero.
NOT option reverses the TRUE/FALSE value of the condition.
In the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph, an external switch name can be associated with one or more condition names. These condition names may then be used to test the ON/OFF status of the external switch.
Here are the relevant sections of code in a program named testprog, which is designed to simply announce if SWITCH-1 is on:
…
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
SWITCH-1 ON STATUS IS Switch-1-Is-ON.
…
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
…
IF Switch-1-Is-ON
DISPLAY "Switch 1 Is On"
END-IF
…
The following are two different command window sessions — the left on a Unix/Cygwin/OSX system and the right on a windows system — that will set the switch on and then execute the testprog program. Notice how the message indicating that the program detected the switch was set is displayed in both examples:
$ COB_SWITCH_1=ON C:>SET COB_SWITCH_1=ON $ export COB_SWITCH_1 C:>testprog $ ./testprog Switch 1 Is On Switch 1 Is On C:> $
{ identifier-1 } IS [ NOT ] RelOp { identifier-2 }
{ literal-1 } ~~~ { literal-2 }
{ arithmetic-expression-1 } { arithmetic-expression-2 }
{ index-name-1 } { index-name-2 }
{ EQUAL TO }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ EQUALS }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ GREATER THAN }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO }
{ ~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ }
{ LESS THAN }
{ ~~~~ }
{ LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO }
{ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ }
{ = }
{ > }
{ >= }
{ < }
{ <= }
These conditions evaluate how two different values "relate" to each other.
USAGE (see USAGE) and number of significant digits in either value are irrelevant as the comparison is performed using the actual algebraic values.
TRUE/FALSE value for the relation test can be established. Characters are compared according to their relative position in the program’s COLLATING SEQUENCE (as defined in SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES)), not according to the bit-pattern values the characters have in storage.
COLLATING SEQUENCE will, however, be based entirely on the bit-pattern values of the various characters.
IS EQUAL TO, IS LESS THAN, …) versus the symbolic version (=, <, …) of the actual relation operators.
[ ( ] Condition-1 [ ) ] { AND } [ ( ] Condition-2 [ ) ]
{ ~~~ }
{ OR }
{ ~~ }
A combined condition is one that computes a TRUE/FALSE value from the TRUE/FALSE values of two other conditions (which could themselves be combined conditions).
TRUE, the result of ORing the two together will result in a value of TRUE. ORing two FALSE conditions will result in a value of FALSE.
AND to yield a value of TRUE, both conditions must have a value of TRUE. In all other circumstances, AND produces a FALSE value.
IF ACCOUNT-STATUS = 1 OR ACCOUNT-STATUS = 2 OR ACCOUNT-STATUS = 7
Could be abbreviated as:
IF ACCOUNT-STATUS = 1 OR 2 OR 7
AND take precedence over OR in combined conditions. Use parenthesis to change this precedence, if necessary. For example:
FALSE AND FALSE OR TRUE AND TRUEEvaluates to TRUE
(FALSE AND FALSE) OR (TRUE AND TRUE)Evaluates to TRUE (since AND has precedence over OR) - this is identical to the previous example
(FALSE AND (FALSE OR TRUE)) AND TRUEEvaluates to FALSE
NOT Condition-1 ~~~
A condition may be negated by prefixing it with the
NOT operator.
NOT operator has the highest precedence of all logical operators, just as a unary minus sign (which “negates” a numeric value) is the highest precedence arithmetic operator.
NOT TRUE AND FALSE AND NOT FALSEEvaluates to FALSE AND FALSE AND TRUE which evaluates to FALSE
NOT (TRUE AND FALSE AND NOT FALSE)Evaluates to NOT (FALSE) which evaluates to TRUE
NOT TRUE AND (FALSE AND NOT FALSE)Evaluates to FALSE AND (FALSE AND TRUE) which evaluates to FALSE
All COBOL implementations distinguish between sentences and statements in the procedure division. A Statement is a single executable COBOL instruction. For example, these are all statements:
MOVE SPACES TO Employee-Address ADD 1 TO Record-Counter DISPLAY "Record-Counter=" Record-Counter
Some COBOL statements have a scope of applicability associated with them where one or more other statements can be considered to be part of or related to the statement in question. An example of such a situation might be the following, where the interest on a loan is being calculated and displayed at 4% interest if the loan balance is under $10,000, and 4.5% otherwise. (WARNING: the following code has an error!):
IF Loan-Balance < 10000
MULTIPLY Loan-Balance BY 0.04 GIVING Interest
ELSE
MULTIPLY Loan-Balance BY 0.045 GIVING Interest
DISPLAY "Interest Amount = " Interest
In this example, the IF statement actually has a scope that can include two sets of associated statements: one set to be executed when the IF (see IF) condition is TRUE, and another if it is FALSE.
Unfortunately, there’s a problem with the above. A human being looking at that code would probably infer that the DISPLAY (see DISPLAY) statement, because of its lack of indentation, is to be executed regardless of the TRUE/FALSE value of the IF condition. Unfortunately, the compiler (any COBOL compiler) won’t see it that way because it really couldn’t care less what sort of indentation, if any, is used. In fact, any COBOL compiler would be just as happy to see the code written like this:
IF Loan-Balance < 10000 MULTIPLY Loan-balance BY 0.04 GIVING Interest ELSE MULTIPLY Loan-Balance BY 0.045 GIVING Interest DISPLAY "Interest Amount = " Interest
How then do we inform the compiler that the DISPLAY statement is outside the scope of the IF?
That’s where sentences come in.
A COBOL Sentence is defined as any arbitrarily long sequence of statements, followed by a period (.) character. The period character is what terminates the scope of a set of statements. Therefore, our example should have been coded like this:
IF Loan-Balance < 10000
MULTIPLY Loan-Balance BY 0.04 GIVING Interest
ELSE
MULTIPLY Loan-Balance BY 0.045 GIVING Interest.
DISPLAY "Interest Amount = " Interest
See the period at the end of the second MULTIPLY (see MULTIPLY)? That is what terminates the scope of the IF, thus making the DISPLAY statement’s execution completely independent of the TRUE/FALSE status of the IF.
Prior to the 1985 COBOL standard, using a period character was the only way to signal the end of a statement’s scope.
Unfortunately, this caused some problems. Take a look at this code:
IF A = 1
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A & B = 1"
ELSE *> This ELSE has a problem!
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A NOT = 1 BUT B = 1"
ELSE
DISPLAY "NEITHER A NOR B = 1".
The problem with this code is that indentation — so critical to improving the human-readability of a program — can provide an erroneous view of the logical flow. An ELSE is always associated with the most-recently encountered IF; this means the emphasized ELSE will be associated with the IF B = 1 statement, not the IF A = 1 statement as the indentation would appear to imply.
This sort of problem led to a band-aid solution being added to the COBOL language: the NEXT SENTENCE clause:
IF A = 1
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A & B = 1"
ELSE
NEXT SENTENCE
ELSE
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A NOT = 1 BUT B = 1"
ELSE
DISPLAY "NEITHER A NOR B = 1".
NEXT SENTENCE informs the compiler that if the B = 1 condition is false, control should fall into the first statement that follows the next period.
With the 1985 standard for COBOL, a much more elegant solution was introduced. Any COBOL
Verb (the first reserved word of a statement) that needed such a thing was allowed to use an END-verb construct to end its scope without disrupting the scope of any other statement it might have been in. Any COBOL 85 compiler would have allowed the following solution to our problem:
IF A = 1
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A & B = 1"
END-IF
ELSE
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A NOT = 1 BUT B = 1"
ELSE
DISPLAY "NEITHER A NOR B = 1".
This new facility made the period almost obsolete, as our program segment would probably be coded like this today:
IF A = 1
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A & B = 1"
END-IF
ELSE
IF B = 1
DISPLAY "A NOT = 1 BUT B = 1"
ELSE
DISPLAY "NEITHER A NOR B = 1"
END-IF
END-IF
COBOL (GnuCOBOL included) still requires that each procedure division paragraph contain at least one sentence if there is any executable code in that paragraph, but a popular coding style is now to simply code a single period right before the end of each paragraph.
The standard for the COBOL language shows the various END-verb clauses are optional because using a period as a scope-terminator remains legal.
If you will be porting existing code over to GnuCOBOL, you’ll find it an accommodating facility capable of conforming to whatever language and coding standards that code is likely to use. If you are creating new GnuCOBOL programs, however, I would strongly counsel you to use the END-verb structures in those programs.
The manipulation of data files is one of the COBOL language’s great strengths. There are features built into COBOL to deal with the possibility that multiple programs may be attempting to access the same file concurrently. Multiple program concurrent access is dealt with in two ways — file sharing and record locking.
Not all GnuCOBOL implementations support file sharing and record-locking options. Whether they do or not depends upon the operating system they were built for and the build options that were used when the specific GnuCOBOL implementation was generated.
GnuCOBOL controls concurrent-file access at the highest level through the concept of file sharing, enforced when a program attempts to open a file. This is accomplished via a UNIX operating-system routine called fcntl. That module is not currently supported by Windows and is not present in the MinGW Unix-emulation package. GnuCOBOL builds created using a MinGW environment will be incapable of supporting file-sharing controls — files will always be shared in such environments. A GnuCOBOL build created using the Cygwin environment on Windows would have access to fcntl and therefore will support file sharing. Of course, actual Unix builds of GnuCOBOL, as well as OSX builds, should have no issues because fcntl should be available.
Any limitations imposed on a successful OPEN (see OPEN) will remain in place until your program either issues a CLOSE (see CLOSE) against the file or the program terminates.
File sharing is controlled through the use of a SHARING clause:
SHARING WITH { ALL OTHER }
~~~~~~~ { ~~~ }
{ NO OTHER }
{ ~~ }
{ READ ONLY }
~~~~ ~~~~
This clause may be used either in the file’s SELECT statement (see SELECT), on the OPEN statement (see OPEN) which initiates your program’s use of the file, or both. If a SHARING option is specified in both places, the specifications made on the OPEN statement will take precedence over those from the SELECT statement.
Here are the meanings of the three options:
ALL OTHERWhen your program opens a file with this sharing option in effect, no restrictions will be placed on other programs attempting to OPEN the file after your program did. This is the default sharing mode.
NO OTHERWhen your program opens a file with this sharing option in effect, your program announces that it is unwilling to allow any other program to have any access to the file as long as you are using that file; OPEN attempts made in other programs will fail with a file status of 37 (PERMISSION DENIED) until such time as you CLOSE (see CLOSE) the file.
READ ONLYOpening a file with this sharing option indicates you are willing to allow other programs to OPEN the file for input while you have it open. If they attempt any other OPEN, theirs will fail with a file status of 37. Of course, your program may fail if someone else got to the file first and opened it with a sharing option that imposed file-sharing limitations.
If the SELECT of a file is coded with a FILE STATUS clause, OPEN failures — including those induced by sharing failures — will be detectable by the program and a graceful recovery (or at least a graceful termination) will be possible. If no such clause was coded, however, a runtime message will be issued and the program will be terminated.
Record-locking is supported by advanced file-management software built-in to the GnuCOBOL implementation you are using. This software provides a single point-of-control for access to files — usually ORGANIZATION INDEXED files. One such runtime package capable of doing this is the Berkeley Database (BDB) package — a package frequently used in GnuCOBOL builds to support indexed files.
The various I/O statements your program can execute are capable of imposing limitations on access by other concurrently-executing programs to the file record they just accessed. These limitations are syntactically imposed by placing a lock on the record using a LOCK clause. Other records in the file remain available, assuming that file-sharing limitations imposed at the time the file was opened didn’t prevent access to the entire file.
DB_HOME run-time environment variable.
SELECT (see SELECT) statement or file OPEN (see OPEN) specifies SHARING WITH NO OTHER, record locking will be disabled.
SELECT contains a LOCK MODE IS AUTOMATIC clause, every time a record is read from the file, that record is automatically locked. Other programs may access other records within the file, but not a locked record.
SELECT contains a LOCK MODE IS MANUAL clause, locks are placed on records only when a READ statement executed against the file includes a LOCK clause (this clause will be discussed shortly).
LOCK ON clause is specified in the file’s SELECT, locks (either automatically or manually acquired) will continue to accumulate as more and more records are read, until they are explicitly released. This is referred to as
multiple record locking.
Locks acquired vie multiple record locking remain in-effect until the program holding the lock…
LOCK ON clause is not specified, then the next I/O statement your program executes, except for START (see START), will release the lock. This is referred to as
single record locking.
LOCK clause, which may be coded on a READ (see READ), REWRITE (see REWRITE) or WRITE statement (see WRITE) looks like this:
{ IGNORING LOCK }
{ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH [ NO ] LOCK }
{ ~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH KEPT LOCK }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH IGNORE LOCK }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH WAIT }
~~~~
The WITH [ NO ] LOCK option is the only one available to REWRITE or WRITE statements.
The meanings of the various record locking options are as follows:
IGNORING LOCKThese options (which are synonymous) inform GnuCOBOL that any locks held by other programs should be ignored.
WITH LOCKAccess to the record by other programs will be denied.
WITH NO LOCKThe record will not be locked. This is the default for all statements.
WITH KEPT LOCKWhen single record locking is in effect, as a new record is accessed, locks held for previous records are released. By using this option, not only is the newly accessed record locked (as WITH LOCK would do), but prior record locks will be retained as well. A subsequent READ without the KEPT LOCK option will release all “kept” locks, as will the UNLOCK statement.
WITH WAITThis option informs GnuCOBOL that the program is willing to wait for a lock held (by another program) on the record being read to be released.
Without this option, an attempt to read a locked record will be immediately aborted and a file status of 51 will be returned.
With this option, the program will wait for a preconfigured time for the lock to be released. If the lock is released within the preconfigured wait time, the read will be successful. If the preconfigured wait time expires before the lock is released, the read attempt will be aborted and a 51 file status will be issued.
The Compiler Directing Facility, or CDF, is a means of controlling the compilation of GnuCOBOL programs. CDF provides a mechanism for dynamically setting or resetting certain compiler switches, introducing new source code from one or more source code libraries, making dynamic source code modifications and conditionally processing or ignoring source statements altogether. This is accomplished via a series of special CDF statements and directives that will appear in the program source code.
When the compiler is operating in Fixed Format Mode, all CDF statements must begin in column eight (8) or beyond.
There are two types of supported CDF statements in GnuCOBOL — Text Manipulation Statements and Compiler Directives.
The CDF text manipulation statements COPY and REPLACE are used to introduce new code into programs either with or without changes, or may be used to modify existing statements already in the program. Text manipulation statements are always terminated with a period.
CDF directives, denoted by the presence of a >> character sequence as part of the statement name itself, influence the process of program compilation.
Compiler directives are never terminated with a period.
The compiler command-line option -D offers additional control (see cobc - The GnuCOBOL Compiler).
>>CALL-CONVENTION { COBOL }
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ { EXTERN }
{ STDCALL }
{ STATIC }
This directive instructs the compiler how to treat references to program names and may be used to determine other details for interacting with a function or program. There are four options with COBOL being the default.
COBOLThe program name is treated as a COBOL word that maps to the externalised name program to be called, cancelled or referenced in the program-address-identifier, applying the same mapping rules as for a program name for which no AS phrase is specified.
(The is the default.)
EXTERNThe program name is treated as an external reference.
STDCALL[more info needed]
STATICThe program name is called as a included element and not dynamically which is the normal default.
COPY copybook-name
~~~~
[ IN|OF library-name ]
~~ ~~
[ SUPPRESS PRINTING ]
~~~~~~~~
[ REPLACING { Phrase-Clause | String-Clause }... ] .
~~~~~~~~~
{ ==pseudo-text-1== } BY { ==pseudo-text-2== }
{ identifier-1 } ~~ { identifier-2 }
{ literal-1 } { literal-2 }
{ word-1 } { word-2 }
[ LEADING|TRAILING ] ==partial-word-1== BY ==partial-word-2== ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~
COPY statements are used to import copybooks (see Copybooks) into a program.
COPY statements may be used anywhere within a COBOL program where the code contained within the copybook would be syntactically valid.
SUPPRESS clause (with or without the optional
PRINTING reserved word) is valid syntactically but is non-functional. It is supported to facilitate compatibility with source code written for other versions of COBOL.
IN and the word OF — use the one you prefer.
COPY statement, even if the statement occurs within the scope of another one where a period might appear disruptive, such as within the scope of an IF (see IF) statement. This mandatory period at the end of the statement does not, however, affect the statement scope in which the COPY occurs.
COPY statements are located and the contents of the corresponding copybooks inserted into the program source code before the actual compilation process begins. If a copybook contains a COPY statement, the copybook insertion process will be repeated to resolve the embedded COPY. This will continue until no unresolved COPY statements remain. At that point, actual program compilation will begin.
REPLACING clause allows for one or more of either of the following kinds of text replacements to be made:
Replacement of one or more complete reserved words, user-defined identifiers or literals; the following points apply to this option:
BY will be referred to here as the search string.
identifier-1, literal-1 or word-1 being replaced.
==pseudo-text-1== option. For example, to replace all occurrences of UPON PRINTER, you would specify ==UPON PRINTER==.
BY, may be specified using any of the four options.
==pseudo-text-2== option. If pseudo-text-2 is null (in other words, the replacement text is specified as ====), all encountered occurrences of the search string will be deleted.
Using this, you may replace character sequences that occur at the beginning (see
LEADING) or end (see
TRAILING) of reserved or user-defined words. For example, to change all words of the form "0100-xxxxxx" to "020-xxxxxx", code LEADING ==0100-== BY ==020-==. To simply remove all "0100-" prefixes from words, code LEADING ==0100-== BY ====.
REPLACE [ ALSO ] { Phrase-Clause | String-Clause }... .
~~~~~~~ ~~~~
REPLACE [ LAST ] OFF . ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~
{ ==pseudo-text-1== } BY { ==pseudo-text-2== }
~~
[ LEADING|TRAILING ] ==partial-word-1== BY ==partial-word-2== ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~
REPLACE statement provides a mechanism for changing all or part of one or more GnuCOBOL statements.
REPLACE statement (either format), even if the statement occurs within the scope of another one where a period might appear disruptive (such as within the scope of an IF (see IF) statement; the period will not, however, affect the statement scope in which the REPLACE occurs.
REPLACE statement:
REPLACE statement can be used to make changes to program source code in much the same way as the
REPLACING option of the COPY statement can, via these options:
Replace one or more complete reserved words, user-defined identifiers or literals; the following points apply to this option:
BY will be referred to here as the search string.
REPLACE are always specified using the ==pseudo-text-1== option. For example, to replace all occurrences of UPON PRINTER, you would specify ==UPON PRINTER==.
BY, is specified using the ==pseudo-text-2== option. If pseudo-text-2 is null (in other words, the replacement text is specified as ====), all encountered occurrences of the search string will be deleted.
Using this, you may replace character sequences that occur at the beginning (see
LEADING) or end (see
TRAILING) of reserved or user-defined words. For example, to change all words of the form "0100-xxxxxx" to "020-xxxxxx", code LEADING ==0100-== BY ==020-==. To simply remove all "0100-" prefixes from words, code LEADING ==0100-== BY ====.
REPLACE statement is encountered in the currently-compiling source file, Replace Mode becomes active, and the change(s) specified by that statement will be automatically made on all subsequent source statements the compiler reads from the file.
REPLACE is encountered, the end of currently compiling program source file is reached or a Format 2 REPLACE statement is encountered.
REPLACE statement with the
ALSO keyword is encountered without Replace Mode being currently active, the effect will be as if the ALSO had not been specified. If Replace Mode already was in effect, the effect will be to “push” the current change specification(s) onto the top of a stack and add the specification(s) of the new statement to those that were already in effect.
REPLACE without the ALSO keyword is encountered, any stacked change specification(s), if any, will be discarded and the currently in-effect change specification(s), if any, will be replaced by those of the new statement.
REPLACE statement:
REPLACE statement will be ignored.
REPLACE OFF. will deactivate Replace Mode and discard any replace specification(s) on the stack. The compiler will henceforth operate as if no REPLACE had ever been encountered, until such time as another Format 1 REPLACE is encountered.
REPLACE LAST OFF. will replace the current replace specification(s) with those popped off the top of the stack. If there were no replace specification(s) on the stack, the effect will be as if a REPLACE OFF. had been coded.
>>DEFINE [ CONSTANT ] cdf-variable-1 AS { OFF }
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { ~~~ }
{ literal-1 [ OVERRIDE ] }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ PARAMETER [ OVERRIDE ] }
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Use the >>DEFINE CDF directive to create CDF variables and (optionally) assign them either literal or environment variable values.
AS is optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION directive is encountered in the input source.
>>DEFINE CDF directive is one way to create CDF variables that may be processed by other CDF statements such as >>IF (see >>IF). The >>SET CDF directive (see >>SET) provides another way to create them.
CONSTANT option is not specified, but such names are not recommended.
CONSTANT option is valid only in conjunction with literal-1. When CONSTANT is specified, the CDF variable that is created may be used within your regular COBOL code as if it were a literal value. Without this option, the CDF variable may only be referenced on other CDF statements. The
OFF option is used to create a variable without assigning it any value.
PARAMETER option is used to create a variable whose value is that of the environment variable of the same name. Note that this value assignment occurs at compilation time, not program execution time.
OVERRIDE option, cdf-variable-1 must not yet have been defined. When the OVERRIDE option is specified, cdf-variable-1 will be created with the specified value, if it had not yet been defined. If it had already been defined, it will be redefined with the new value.
>>IF CDF-Conditional-Expression-1 ~~~~ [ Program-Source-Lines-1 ] [ >>ELIF CDF-Conditional-Expression-2 ~~~~~~ [ Program-Source-Lines-2 ] ]... [ >>ELSE ~~~~~~ [ Program-Source-Lines-3 ] ] >>END-IF ~~~~~~~~
{ cdf-variable-1 } IS [ NOT ] { DEFINED }
{ literal-1 } ~~~ { ~~~~~~~ }
{ SET }
{ ~~~ }
{ CDF-RelOp { cdf-variable-2 } }
{ { literal-2 } }
>= or GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO
~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~
> or GREATER THAN
~~~~~~~
<= or LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO
~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~
< or LESS THAN
~~~~
= or EQUAL TO
~~~~~
<> or EQUAL TO (with "NOT")
~~~~~
The >>IF CDF directive causes the GnuCOBOL compiler to process or ignore COBOL source statements, CDF text-manipulation statements and/or CDF directives depending upon the value of one or more conditional expressions based upon CDF variables.
IS, THAN and TO are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect on the program.
>>IF directive must be terminated by an
>>END-IF directive.
>>ELIF clauses following an >>IF, including zero.
>>ELSE clause following an >>IF. When >>ELSE is used, it must follow the >>IF and all >>ELIF clauses.
>>IF … >>END-IF may be processed by the compiler. Which one (if any) that gets processed will be decided as follows:
>>ELIF clauses that may be present until one evaluates to TRUE. Once one of them evaluates to TRUE, the Program-Source-Lines-n block of code that corresponds to the TRUE CDF-Conditional-Expression-n will be one that is processed. All others within the >>IF->>END-IF scope will be ignored.
TRUE, and there is an >>ELSE clause, the Program-Source-Lines-3 block of statements following the >>ELSE clause will be processed by the compiler and all others within the >>IF->>END-IF scope will be ignored.
TRUE and there is no >>ELSE clause, then none of the Program-Source-Lines-n block of statements within the >>IF->>END-IF scope will be processed by the compiler.
>>IF->>END-IF structure.
DEFINED option tests for whether cdf-variable-1 has been defined, but not yet assigned a value (>>DEFINE … OFF); use the NOT option to test for the variable not being defined.
SET option tests for whether cdf-variable-1 has been given a value, either via a >>SET statement or via a >>DEFINE without the OFF option.
IF statement (see IF), multiple comparisons cannot be ANDed or ORed together; you may nest a second >>IF inside the first, however, to simulate an AND and an OR may be simulated via the >>ELIF option.
<> symbol stands for NOT EQUAL TO.
>>SET { [ CONSTANT ] cdf-variable-1 literal-1 ] }
~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~ }
{ SOURCEFORMAT AS FIXED|FREE }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ NOFOLDCOPYNAME }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ FOLDCOPYNAME AS UPPER|LOWER }
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
The >>SET CDF directive provides an alternate means of performing the actions of the >>DEFINE and >>SOURCE directives, as well as a means of controlling the compiler’s
-free switch,
-fixed switch and
-ffold-copy switch from within program source code.
AS is optional (only on the SOURCEFORMAT and FOLDCOPYNAME clauses) and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION directive is encountered in the input source.
FOLDCOPYNAME option provides the equivalent of specifying the compiler -ffold-copy=xxx switch, where xxx is either
UPPER or
LOWER.
NOFOLDCOPYNAME option turns off the effect of either the >>SET FOLDCOPYNAME statement or the compiler -ffold-copy=xxx switch.
CONSTANT option is used, literal-1 must also be used. This option provides another means of defining constants that may be used anywhere in the program that a literal could be specified.
>>SET CDF directive provide equivalent functionality to the >>DEFINE and >>SOURCE directives, as follows:
>>SET cdf-variable-1>>DEFINE cdf-variable-1 AS OFF
>>SET cdf-variable-1 AS literal-1>>DEFINE cdf-variable-1 AS literal-1
>>SET CONSTANT cdf-variable-1 literal-1>>DEFINE CONSTANT cdf-variable-1 literal-1
>>SET SOURCEFORMAT AS FIXED>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
>>SET SOURCEFORMAT AS FREE>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
>>SET XFD literal-1[to do]
>>SET Micro-Focus-Directive[to do]
>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED|FREE|VARIABLE ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
The >>SOURCE CDF directive puts the compiler into FIXED or FREE source-code format mode. This, in effect, provides yet another mechanism for controlling the compiler’s
-free switch and
-fixed switch.
FORMAT and IS are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FIXED and FREE mode as desired.
>>SET CDF directive to perform this function.
>>TURN { exception-name-1 [ file-name-1 ]... }...
~~~~~~
{ OFF }
{ ~~~ }
{ CHECKING ON [ WITH LOCATION ] }
~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~
The directive will (de-)activate exception checks.
>>D ~~~
The directive removes all floating debug lines if debug mode not active. Otherwise will ignore the directive part of the line.
>>DISPLAY source-text [ VCS = version-string ] ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
The directive is a v1.0 extension and will display messages during compilation.
>>PAGE ~~~~~~
The directive allows usage of the IBM paging controls EJECT, SKIP1, SKIP2, SKIP3 and TITLE.
>>LISTING {ON}
~~~~~~~~~ {OFF}
The directive allows the program listing to be de-(activated).
>>LEAP-SECONDS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The >>LEAP-SECONDS CDF directive is syntactically recognized but is otherwise non-functional.
Allows for more than 60 seconds per minute.
$ (Dollar) Directives - Active. These directives are active and have the same function as ones starting with >>: $DEFINE $DISPLAY ON|OFF $IF $ELIF $ELSE $ELSE-IF $END $SET It is recommend to use the standard directives only instead of the MF directives (when possible) as these have a a higher chance for being portable. $ (Dollar) Directives - Not Active. These are NOT active and will produce a warning message: $DISPLAY VCS ... Recognised but otherwise ignored. @OPTIONS options-text Additional Micro-Focus directives accepted : ADDRSV | ADD-RSV literal-1 ADDSYN | ADD-SYN literal-1 = literal-2 ASSIGN "EXTERNAL" | "DYNAMIC" BOUND CALLFH literal-1 COMP1 | COMP-1 "BINARY" | "FLOAT" FOLDCOPYNAME | FOLD-COPY-NAME AS "UPPER" | "LOWER" MAKESYN | MAKE-SYN NOBOUND | NO-BOUND NOFOLDCOPYNAME | NOFOLD-COPY-NAME | NO-FOLD-COPY-NAME OVERRIDE literal-1 = literal-2 REMOVE literal-1 SOURCEFORMAT | SOURCE-FORMAT "FIXED" | "FREE" | "VARIABLE" SSRANGE "2" NOSSRANGE | NO-SSRANGE
Offers support for MF Compiler Directives.
GnuCOBOL defines compilation variables when various conditions are true. If the condition associated with a variable is false, the variable is not defined.
DEBUGThe -d debug flag is specified.
EXECUTABLEModule being compiled contains the main program.
GCCOMPThe size of a COMP item is determined according to the GnuCOBOL scheme where for a picture of length:
item = 1 byte
item = 2 bytes
item = 4 bytes
item = 8 bytes
GNUCOBOLGnuCOBOL is compiling the source unit.
HOSTSIGNSA signed packed decimal item’s value may be considered NUMERIC if sign = X"F".
IBMCOMPThe size of a COMP item is determined according to the IBM scheme, where for a PICTURE of length:
item = 2 bytes
item = 4 bytes
item = 8 bytes
MODULEThe element being compiled does not contain the main program.
NOHOSTSIGNSA signed packed decimal item’s value may not be considered NUMERIC if sign = X"F".
NOIBMCOMPThe size of a COMP item is not determined according to the IBM scheme.
NOSTICKY-LINKAGESticky linkage (linkage section items remaining allocated between invocations) is not active.
NOTRUNCNumeric data items are truncated according to their internal representation.
P64Pointers are greater than 32 bits.
STICKY-LINKAGESticky linkage (linkage section items remaining allocated between invocations) is active.
TRUNCNumeric data items are truncated according to their PICTURE clauses.
While still supported, this may well be removed in the future and should not be
used. See GCCOMP and GNUCOBOL instead:
OCCOMPThe size of a COMP item is determined according to the GnuCOBOL scheme, where for a PICTURE of length:
item = 1 byte
item = 2 bytes
item = 4 bytes
item = 8 bytes
OPENCOBOLGnuCOBOL is compiling the source unit.
[{ IDENTIFICATION } DIVISION. ]
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~~
{ ID }
~~
{ PROGRAM-ID. } { program name } .
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ } { literal-1 } [ AS { literal-2 } ] [ Type-clause ] .
{ FUNCTION-ID. } { literal-3 } [ AS literal-4 ] .
~~~~~~~~~~~ { function-name } .
{ OPTIONS. }
~~~~~~~
[ DEFAULT ROUNDED MODE IS {AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ {NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{NEAREST-EVEN }
{NEAREST-TOWARDS-ZERO }
{PROHIBITED }
{TOWARDS-GREATER }
{TOWARDS-LESSER }
{TRUNCATION }]
[ ENTRY-CONVENTION IS {COBOL }
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ {EXTERN }
{STDCALL }]
[ AUTHOR. comment-1. ]
~~~~~~
[ DATE-COMPILED. comment-2. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ DATE-MODIFIED. comment-3. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ DATE-WRITTEN. comment-4. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ INSTALLATION. comment-5. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ REMARKS. comment-6. ]
~~~~~~~
[ SECURITY. comment-7. ]
~~~~~~~~
The
AUTHOR,
DATE-COMPILED,
DATE-MODIFIED,
DATE-WRITTEN,
INSTALLATION,
REMARKS and
SECURITY
paragraphs are supported by GnuCOBOL only to provide compatibility with programs written for the ANS1974 (or earlier) standards. As of the ANS1985 standard, these clauses have become obsolete and should not be used in new programs.
IS [ COMMON ] [ INITIAL|RECURSIVE PROGRAM ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
The identification division provides basic identification of the program by giving it a name and optionally defining some high-level characteristics via the eight pre-defined paragraphs that may be specified.
AS, IS and PROGRAM are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
PROGRAM-ID is specified. If one is coded, either COMMON, COMMON INITIAL or COMMON RECURSIVE must be specified.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION or ID DIVISION header is optional, the PROGRAM-ID /
FUNCTION-ID paragraphs are not; only one or the other, however, may be coded.
PROGRAM-ID and FUNCTION-ID paragraphs serve to identify the program to the external (i.e. operating system) environment. If there is no AS clause present, the program-id will serve as that external identification. If there is an AS clause specified, that specified literal will serve as the external identification. For the remainder of this document, that "external identification" will be referred to as the primary entry-point name.
INITIAL, COMMON and RECURSIVE words are used only within subprograms serving as subroutines. Their purposes are as follows:
COMMON should be used only within subprograms that are nested subprograms. A nested subprogram declared as COMMON may be called from any nested program in the source file being compiled, not just those "above" it in the nesting structure.
RECURSIVE clause, if any, will cause the compiler to generate different object code for the subprogram that will enable it to invoke itself and to properly return back to the program that invoked it.
User-defined functions (i.e. FUNCTION-ID) are always recursive.
INITIAL clause, if specified, guarantees the subprogram will be in its initial (i.e. compiled) state each and every time it is executed, not just the first time.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ [ CONFIGURATION SECTION. ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ [ SOURCE-COMPUTER. Compilation-Computer-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ OBJECT-COMPUTER. Execution-Computer-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ SPECIAL-NAMES. Program-Configuration-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ REPOSITORY. Function-Specification... . ] ~~~~~~~~~~ [ INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ [ FILE-CONTROL. General-File-Description... . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ I-O-CONTROL. File-Buffering Specification... . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~
This division defines the external computer environment in which the program will be operating. This includes defining any files that the program may be .
SOURCE-COMPUTER and OBJECT-COMPUTER, for example), each of which serves a specific purpose. If no code is required for the purpose one of the paragraphs serves, the entire paragraph may be omitted.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. header itself may be omitted.
CONFIGURATION SECTION. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ [ SOURCE-COMPUTER. Compilation-Computer-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ OBJECT-COMPUTER. Execution-Computer-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ SPECIAL-NAMES. Program-Configuration-Specification . ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ REPOSITORY. Function-Specification... . ] ~~~~~~~~~~
This section defines the computer system upon which the program is being compiled and executed and also specifies any special environmental configuration or compatibility characteristics.
CONFIGURATION SECTION. header may be omitted from the program.
SOURCE-COMPUTER. computer-name [ WITH DEBUGGING MODE ] . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~
This paragraph defines the computer upon which the program is being compiled and provides one way in which debugging code embedded within the program may be activated.
WITH is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
SOURCE-COMPUTER settings of its parent program.
OBJECT-COMPUTER paragraph, if any.
DEBUGGING MODE clause, if present, will inform the compiler that debugging lines (those with a ‘D’ in column 7 if Fixed Source Mode is in effect, or those prefixed with a >>D if Free Source Mode is in effect) — normally treated as comments — are to be compiled.
DEBUGGING MODE clause, it is still possible to compile debugging lines. Debugging lines may also be compiled by specifying the
-fdebugging-line switch to the GnuCOBOL compiler.
OBJECT-COMPUTER. [ computer-name ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ MEMORY SIZE IS integer-1 WORDS|CHARACTERS ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ PROGRAM COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SEGMENT-LIMIT IS integer-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION IS { locale-name-1 } ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ { LOCALE }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ USER-DEFAULT }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ SYSTEM-DEFAULT }
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.
The
MEMORY SIZE and
SEGMENT-LIMIT
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
This paragraph describes the computer upon which the program will execute.
OBJECT-COMPUTER paragraph name. The remaining clauses may be coded in any sequence.
CHARACTER, IS, PROGRAM and SEQUENCE are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect on the program.
SOURCE-COMPUTER paragraph, if any.
OBJECT-COMPUTER paragraph is not allowed in a nested subprogram. A nested program inherits the OBJECT-COMPUTER settings of its parent program.
COLLATING SEQUENCE clause allows you to specify a customized character collating sequence to be used when alphanumeric values are compared to one another. Data will still be stored in the character set native to the computer, but the logical sequence in which characters are ordered for comparison purposes can be altered from that defined by the computer’s native character set. The alphabet-name-1 you specify needs to be defined in the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph.
COLLATING SEQUENCE clause is specified, the collating sequence implied by the character set native to the computer (usually ASCII) will be used.
CLASSIFICATION clause may be used to specify a locale for the environment in which the program will execute, for the purpose of influencing the upper-case and lower-case mappings of characters for the UPPER-CASE (see UPPER-CASE) and LOWER-CASE (see LOWER-CASE) intrinsic functions and the classification of characters for the ALPHABETIC, ALPHABETIC-LOWER and ALPHABETIC-UPPER class tests. The definitions of these classes is taken from the cultural convention specification (LC_CTYPE) from the specified locale.
The meanings of the four locale specifications are as follows:
LOCALE (see SPECIAL-NAMES) definition.
LOCALE refers to the current locale (in effect at the time the program is executed)
USER-DEFAULT references the default locale specified for the user currently executing this program.
SYSTEM-DEFAULT denotes the default locale specified for the computer upon which the program is executing.
CLASSIFICATION clause will cause character classification to occur according to the rules for the computer’s native character set (ASCII, EBCDIC, etc.).
SPECIAL-NAMES.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ CALL-CONVENTION integer-1 IS mnemonic-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ CONSOLE IS CRT ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~
[ CRT STATUS IS identifier-1 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~
[ CURRENCY SIGN IS literal-1 ]
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~
[ CURSOR IS identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~
[ DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
[ EVENT STATUS IS identifier-3 ]
~~~~~ ~~~~~~
[ LOCALE locale-name-1 IS literal-2 ]...
~~~~~~
[ NUMERIC SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SCREEN CONTROL IS identifier-4 ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ device-name-1 IS mnemonic-name-2 ]...
[ feature-name-1 IS mnemonic-name-3 ]...
[ Alphabet-Clause ]...
[ Class-Definition-Clause ]...
[ Switch-Definition-Clause ]...
[ Symbolic-Characters-Clause ]...
.
The
EVENT STATUS and
SCREEN CONTROL
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph provides a means for specifying various program and operating environment configuration options.
SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph may be coded in any order.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph is not allowed in a nested subprogram. A nested program inherits the SPECIAL-NAMES settings of its parent program.
CALL-CONVENTION clause allows a decimal integer, representing a series of ON/OFF switch settings, to be associated with a mnemonic name which may then be coded on a CALL statement (see CALL). The switch settings defined by this mnemonic will then control how the linkage to a subroutine invoked by the CALL statement that references mnemonic-name-1 will be handled.
CONSOLE IS CRT clause, if specified, will cause a DISPLAY statement lacking an explicit UPON clause to be treated as a DISPLAY screen-data-item statement (see DISPLAY screen-data-item), and any ACCEPT statement lacking a FROM clause to be treated as a ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item).
CRT STATUS clause is not specified, an implicit
COB-CRT-STATUS identifier (with a PICTURE 9(4)) will be allocated for the purpose of receiving screen ACCEPT statuses. If CRT STATUS is specified, then identifier-1 must be defined in the program as a PICTURE 9(4) field.
CURRENCY SIGN clause may be used to redefine the character to be used as a currency sign in a PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause. The default currency sign is a dollar-sign (‘$’). You may specify any character except 0-9, A-Z, a-z, +, -, ,, ., *, /, ;, (, ), =, \\, quote (‘"’) or space.
CURSOR IS clause allows you to specify a 4- or 6-character data item into which the cursor screen location at the time a screen ACCEPT is satisfied. The value will be returned as rrcc or rrrccc, depending upon the length of the specified identifier-2, where rr and rrr represent the row number (starting at zero) and cc and ccc represent the column number (also starting at zero). There is no default data item allocated for this data if the CURSOR IS clause is not specified, and it is the programmer’s responsibility to define identifier-2 if the clause is specified.
DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA clause reverses the definition of the ‘,’ and ‘.’ characters when they are used as PICTURE editing symbols and within numeric literals. This can have unwanted side-effects - see Punctuation.
LOCALE clause may be used to associate external OS-defined locale names (literal-2) with an internal name (locale-name-1) that may then be referenced within the program. Locale names are defined by the Operating System and/or C compiler GnuCOBOL will be utilizing on your computer.
af_ZA, am_ET, ar_AE, ar_BH, ar_DZ, ar_EG, ar_IQ, ar_JO, ar_KW, ar_LB, ar_LY, ar_MA, ar_OM, ar_QA, ar_SA, ar_SY, ar_TN, ar_YE, arn_CL, as_IN, az_Cyrl_AZ, az_Latn_AZ
ba_R, be_BY, bg_BG, bn_IN bo_BT, bo_CN, br_FR, bs_Cyrl_BA, bs_Latn_BA
ca_ES, cs_CZ, cy_GB
da_DK, de_AT, de_CH, de_DE, de_LI, de_LU, dsb_DE, dv_MV
el_GR, en_029, en_AU, en_BZ, en_CA, en_GB, en_IE, en_IN, en_JM, en_MY en_NZ, en_PH, en_SG, en_TT, en_US, en_ZA, en_ZW, es_AR, es_BO, es_CL, es_CO, es_CR, es_DO, es_EC, es_ES, es_GT, es_HN, es_MX, es_NI, es_PA, es_PE, es_PR, es_PY, es_SV, es_US, es_UY es_VE, et_EE, eu_ES
fa_IR, fi_FI, fil_PH, fo_FO, fr_BE, fr_CA, fr_CH, fr_FR, fr_LU, fr_MC, fy_NL
ga_IE, gbz_AF, gl_ES, gsw_FR, gu_IN
ha_Latn_NG, he_IL, hi_IN, hr_BA, hr_HR, hu_HU, hy_AM
id_ID, ig_NG, ii_CN, is_IS, it_CH, it_IT, iu_Cans_CA, iu_Latn_CA
ja_JP
ka_GE, kh_KH, kk_KZ, kl_GL, kn_IN, ko_KR, kok_IN, ky_KG
lb_LU, lo_LA, lt_LT, lv_LV
mi_NZ, mk_MK, ml_IN, mn_Cyrl_MN, mn_Mong_CN moh_CA, mr_IN, ms_BN, ms_MY, mt_MT
nb_NO, ne_NP, nl_BE, nl_NL, nn_NO, ns_ZA
oc_FR, or_IN
pa_IN, pl_PL, ps_AF, pt_BR, pt_PT
qut_GT, quz_BO, quz_EC, quz_PE
rm_CH, ro_RO, ru_RU, rw_RW
sa_IN, sah_RU, se_FI, se_NO se_SE, si_LK, sk_SK, sl_SI, sma_NO, sma_SE, smj_NO, smj_SE, smn_FI, sms_FI, sq_AL, sr_Cyrl_BA, sr_Cyrl_CS, sr_Latn_BA, sr_Latn_CS, sv_FI, sv_SE, sw_KE syr_SY
ta_IN, te_IN, tg_Cyrl_TJ, th_TH tk_TM, tmz_Latn_DZ, tn_ZA, tr_IN, tr_TR, tt_RU
ug_CN, uk_UA, ur_PK, uz_Cyrl_UZ, uz_Latn_UZ
vi_VN
wen_DE, wo_SN
xh_ZA
yo_NG
zh_CN, zh_HK, zh_MO, zh_SG, zh_TW, zu_ZA
NUMERIC SIGN TRAILING SEPARATE specification causes all signed numeric USAGE DISPLAY data items to be created as if the SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE CHARACTER clause was included in their definitions.
device-name-1 IS mnemonic-name-2 clause allows you to specify an alternate name (device-name-1) for one of the built-in GnuCOBOL device name mnemonic-name-2. The list of device names built-into GnuCOBOL, and the physical device associated with that name, are as follows:
CONSOLEThis is the (screen-mode) display of the PC or Unix system.
STDINSYSINSYSIPTThese devices (they are all synonymous) represent standard system input (pipe 0). On a PC or UNIX system, this is typically the keyboard. The contents of a file may be delivered to a GnuCOBOL program for access via one of these device names by adding the sequence ‘0< filename’ to the end of the programs execution command.
PRINTERSTDOUTSYSLISTSYSLSTSYSOUTThese devices (they are all synonymous) represent standard system output (pipe 1). On a PC or UNIX system, this is typically the display. Output sent to one of these devices by a GnuCOBOL program can be sent to a file by adding the sequence ‘1> filename’ to the end of the programs execution command.
STDERRSYSERRThese devices (they are synonymous) represent standard system error output (pipe 2). On a PC or UNIX system, this is typically the display. Output sent to one of these devices by a GnuCOBOL program can be sent to a file by adding the sequence ‘2> filename’ to the end of the programs execution command.
feature-name-1 IS mnemonic-name-3 clause allow for mnemonic names to be assigned to up to the 13 printer channel (i.e. vertical page positioning) position feature names Cnn (nn=01-12) and CSP. Once a channel position has been assigned a mnemonic name, statements of the form WRITE record-name AFTER ADVANCING mnemonic-name-3 may be coded to write the specified print record at the channel position assigned to mnemonic-name-3.
Printers supporting channel positioning are generally mainframe-type line printers. When writing to printers that do not support channel positioning, a formfeed will be issued to the printer.
The CSP positioning option stands for “No Spacing”. Testing on a MinGW build of GnuCOBOL shows that this too results in a formfeed being issued.
ALPHABET alphabet-name-1 IS { ASCII }
~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~~ }
{ EBCDIC }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ NATIVE }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ STANDARD-1 }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ STANDARD-2 }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ Literal-Clause... }
literal-1 [ { THRU|THROUGH literal-2 } ]
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ {ALSO literal-3}... }
~~~~
The
ALPHABET clause relates alphabet-name-1 to a specified character code set or collating sequence, including one you define yourself using the literal-1 option.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
ASCII,
STANDARD-1 and
STANDARD-2 to be interchangeable.
NATIVE specifies the system default character set.
NATIVE character set, either by its actual text value (alphanumeric quoted character) or by ordinal position in the NATIVE character set (integer),
NATIVE character set.
SPACE, SPACES, ZERO, ZEROS, ZEROES, QUOTE, QUOTES, HIGH-VALUE, HIGH-VALUES, LOW-VALUE or LOW-VALUES for any of the literal-1, literal-2 or literal-3 specifications.
CODE-SET, COLLATING SEQUENCE, or SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clauses elsewhere in the program.
CLASS class-name-1 IS { literal-1 [ THRU|THROUGH literal-2 ] }...
~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
Hexadecimal, the definition of which specifies the only characters that may be present in an alphanumeric data item if that data item is to be part of the Hexadecimal class:
CLASS Hexadecimal IS '0' THRU '9'
'A' THRU 'F'
'a' THRU 'f'
Hexadecimal has been defined, program code could then use a statement such as IF input-item IS Hexadecimal to determine if the value of characters in a data item are valid according to that class.
switch-name-1 [ IS mnemonic-name-1 ]
[ ON STATUS IS condition-name-1 ]
~~
[ OFF STATUS IS condition-name-2 ]
~~~
The switch-definition clause associates a condition-name with a run-time execution switch so that the status of that switch may be tested from within a program.
IS and STATUS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SWITCH-n (n = 0-36).
SWn (n = 0-15) are also valid; they correspond to SWITCH-0 through SWITCH-15, respectively as well as SWITCH-16 through SWITCH-36, SWITCH 0 through SWITCH 26 and SWITCH A through SWITCH Z.
COB_SWITCH_n run-time environment variable, where n will have the value ‘0’ through ‘15’. Any of these sixteen environment variables that have the value ON (regardless of upper- or lower-case value) will be considered to be set “on”. Any of these sixteen environment variables having no value at all or a value other than ON will be considered OFF.
IS mnemonic-name-1, ON STATUS or an OFF STATUS option defined for it, otherwise there will be no way to reference the switch from within a GnuCOBOL program.
IS mnemonic-name-1 syntax provides a means for setting the switch to either an ON or OFF value via the SET statement (see SET).
ON STATUS and
OFF STATUS syntax provides a way of associating a condition-name with either the on or off status of the switch, so that status may be tested at execution time via the IF statement (see IF).
SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS
~~~~~~~~
{ symbolic-character-1... IS|ARE integer-1... }...
[ IN alphabet-name-1 ]
~~
This clause may be used to define your own figurative constants.
ARE, CHARACTERS and IS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
There must be exactly as many integer-1 values specified as there are
symbolic-character-1 names.
IN clause. The integer values are selecting characters from the alphabet by their ordinal position and not by their numeric value; thus, an integer of 15 will select the 15th character in the specified alphabet, regardless of the actual numeric value of the bit pattern that constitutes that character.
SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS NUL IS 1
SOH IS 2
BEL IS 8
DC1 IS 18
DC2 IS 19
SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS NUL SOH BEL DC1 DC2
ARE 1 2 8 18 19
REPOSITORY.
~~~~~~~~~~
FUNCTION { function-prototype-name-1 [ AS literal-1 ] }...
~~~~~~~~ { ~~ }
{ intrinsic-function-name-1 [ AS literal-2 ] }
{ ~~ }
{ intrinsic-function-name-2 INTRINSIC }
{ ALL INTRINSIC ~~~~~~~~~ }
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
The REPOSITORY paragraph provides a way to control access to the various built-in intrinsic functions and any user defined functions that your program will be using.
REPOSITORY paragraph is not allowed in a nested subprogram. A nested program inherits the REPOSITORY settings of its parent program.
INTRINSIC clause allows you to flag one or more (or
ALL) built-in intrinsic functions as being usable without the need to code the keyword
FUNCTION in front of the function names.
ALL INTRINSIC clause, you may instead compile your GnuCOBOL programs using the
-fintrinsics=ALL switch.
AS clause to provide an alias name for a built-in intrinsic function.
FUNCTION keyword,
MY-FUNCTION-1 and MY-FUNCTION-2 that will be used by the program and
SIGMA for the intrinsic function STANDARD-DEVIATION and MF2 for MY-FUNCTION-2.
REPOSITORY.
FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC.
FUNCTION MY-FUNCTION-1.
FUNCTION MY-FUNCTION-2 AS "MF2".
FUNCTION STANDARD-DEVIATION AS "SIGMA".
A special note about user-defined functions — because you must name a user-defined function that your program will be using in the REPOSITORY paragraph, you may always reference that function from your program’s procedure division without needing to use the FUNCTION keyword.
[ INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ FILE-CONTROL. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ SELECT-Statement... ]
[ I-O-CONTROL. ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
[ MULTIPLE-FILE-Statement ]
[ SAME-RECORD-Statement ]
The INPUT-OUTPUT section provides for the definition of any files the program will be accessing as well as control of the I/O buffering process against those files through the FILE-CONTROL and I-O-CONTROL paragraphs, respectively.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. header itself may be omitted, otherwise it is normally required.
relaxed-syntax-check set to ‘yes’, the FILE-CONTROL and I-O-CONTROL paragraphs may be specified without the INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION header having been coded.
I-O-CONTROL paragraph, the order in which those statements are coded is irrelevant.
SELECT [ [ NOT ] OPTIONAL ] file-name-1
~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ ASSIGN { TO } [{ EXTERNAL }] [{ DISC|DISK }] [{ identifier-1 }] ]
~~~~~~ { USING } { ~~~~~~~~ } { ~~~~ ~~~~ } { word-1 }
{ DYNAMIC } { DISPLAY } { literal-1 }
~~~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~ }
{ KEYBOARD }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ LINE ADVANCING }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PRINTER }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ RANDOM }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ TAPE }
~~~~
[ COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ FILE|SORT ] STATUS IS identifier-2 [ identifier-3 ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~
[ LOCK MODE IS { MANUAL|AUTOMATIC } ]
~~~~ { ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ EXCLUSIVE [ WITH { LOCK ON MULTIPLE RECORDS } ] }
~~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ LOCK ON RECORD }
{ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ }
{ ROLLBACK }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
[ ORGANIZATION Clause ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ ORGANISATION Clause ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ RECORD DELIMITER IS STANDARD-1 ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ RESERVE integer-1 AREAS ]
~~~~~~~
[ SHARING WITH { ALL OTHER } ]
~~~~~~~ { ~~~ }
{ NO OTHER }
{ ~~ }
{ READ ONLY }
~~~~ ~~~~
The
COLLATING SEQUENCE,
RECORD DELIMITER,
RESERVE and
ALL OTHER clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The SELECT statement creates a definition of a file and links that COBOL definition to the external operating system environment.
AREAS, IS, MODE, OTHER, SEQUENCE, TO, USING and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
OPTIONAL clause, to be used only for files that will be used to provide input data to the program, indicates the file may or may not actually be available at run-time. Attempts to OPEN an OPTIONAL file when the file does not exist will receive a special non-fatal file status value (see status 05 in the list of file status values below) indicating the file is not available; a subsequent attempt to READ that file will return an AT END (end-of-file) condition. Optionally, files may be designated as NOT OPTIONAL, if desired. This is useful when specifying the compiler’s
-foptional-file switch, which automatically makes all files OPTIONAL except for those explicitly declared as NOT OPTIONAL.
ASSIGN clause specifies how — at runtime, when file-name-1 is opened — either a logical device (STDIN, STDOUT) or a file anywhere in one of the currently-mounted file systems will be associated with file-name-1, as follows:
ASSIGN clause:
TypeEXTERNAL, DYNAMIC or neither
Devicethe list of device choices
Locatorshown as a choice between identifier-1, word-1 and literal-1.
ASSIGN TO DISC file-name-1 will be assumed if there is no ASSIGN clause on a SELECT.
ASSIGN clause is coded without a Device, the device DISC will be assumed.
EXTERNAL, then word-1 itself will serve as the File Location String that will identify the data file. If, however, a Type of EXTERNAL was not specified, the compiler will create a PIC X(1024) data item named word-1 within the program; the contents of that data item at the time the program opens file-name-1 will then serve as the File Location String that will identify the data file.
DISC or DISK will assume an attachment to a file named file-name-1 in whatever directory is current at the time the file is opened.
DISPLAY will assume an attachment to the STDOUT logical device; these files should only be used for output.
KEYBOARD will assume an attachment to the STDIN logical device; these files should only be used for input.
PRINTER will assume an attachment to the LPT1 logical device/port; these files should only be used for output.
RANDOM or TAPE will behave exactly as DISC does. These two additional Devices are provided to facilitate the compilation of COBOL source from other COBOL implementations.
LINE ADVANCING device requires that a Locator be specified; these files should only be used for output. A COBOL Line Advancing file will allow carriage-control characters such as line-feeds and form-feeds to be written to the attached operating system file, via the ADVANCING clause of the WRITE statement (see WRITE).
filename-mapping value of yes, the GnuCOBOL runtime system will first attempt to identify a currently-defined environment variable whose value will serve as the data file’s path and filename, as follows:
mf as the assign-clause value, then the File Locator String will be interpreted according to Microfocus COBOL rules — namely, everything before the last ‘-’ in the File Locator String will be ignored; the characters after the last ‘-’ will be treated as the base of an environment variable name. If there is no ‘-’ character in the File Locator String then the entire File Locator String will serve as the base of an environment variable name. This is the default behaviour for every config file except ibm.
mf as the assign-clause value, then the File Locator String will be interpreted according to according to IBM COBOL rules — namely, the File Locator String is expected to be of the form S-xxx or AS-xxx, in which case the xxx will be treated as the base of an environment variable name. If there is no ‘-’ character in the File Locator String then the entire File Locator String will serve as the base of an environment variable name.
bbbb) has been determined, the runtime system will look for the first one of the following environment variables that exists, in this sequence:
DD_bbbbdd_bbbbbbbb
Windows systems are case-insensitive with regard to environment variables, so there is no difference between the first two when using a GnuCOBOL implementation built for either Windows/MinGW or native Windows.
If an environment variable was found, its value will serve as the path and filename to the data file.
filename-mapping value of NO, then the File Locator String value will serve as the path and filename to the data file.
C:\\Data\\datafile.dat, /Data/datafile.dat, …) or relative to the current directory (Data\\datafile.dat, Data/datafile.dat, …) basis.
If no directory name is included (datafile.dat), the file must be in the current directory.
FILE STATUS or
SORT STATUS clause (they are both equivalent and only one or the other, if any, should be specified) is used to specify the name of a two-digit numeric data item into which an I/O status code will be saved after every I/O verb that is executed against the file. This does not actually allocate the data item — you must define the item yourself somewhere in the data division. Note that the following list is not definitive: more can be added and any tests should include one for non zeros as a catch all.
Possible status codes that can be returned to a FILE STATUS data item are as follows:
00Success
02Success (Duplicate Record Key Written)
04Success (Incomplete)
05Success (Optional File Not Found)
07Success (No Unit)
10End of file reached if reading forward or beginning-of-file reached if reading backward
14Out of key range
21Key invalid
22Key already exists
23Key not found
24Key boundary violation
30Permanent I/O error
31Inconsistent filename
34Boundary violation
35File not found
37Permission denied
38Closed with lock
39Conflicting attribute
41File already open
42File not open
43Read not done
44Record overflow
46Read error
47OPEN INPUT denied (insufficient permissions to read file)
48OPEN OUTPUT denied (insufficient permissions to write to file)
49OPEN I-O denied (insufficient permissions to read and/or write file)
51Record locked
52End of page
57LINAGE bad specification (I-O linage)
61File sharing failure
71Bad character
91File not available
SHARING clause defines the conditions under which the program will be willing (or not) to allow other programs executing at the same time to access the file. See File Sharing, for the details.
LOCK clause defines how concurrent access to the file will be managed on a record-by-record basis. See Record Locking, for the details.
ORGANIZATION clause, see next group of paragraphs.
SELECT statement without an ORGANIZATION explicitly coded will be handled as if the following ORGANIZATION clause had been specified:
ORGANIZATION IS SEQUENTIAL ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL
[ ORGANIZATION|ORGANISATION IS ] RECORD BINARY SEQUENTIAL
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
Files declared as ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL will consist of records with no explicit end-of-record delimiter character sequences; records in such files are “delineated” by a calculated byte-offset (based on the maximum record length) into the file.
BINARY, IS, MODE and RECORD are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION and ORGANISATION are interchangeable.
ORGANIZATION IS (and its internationalized alternative, ORGANISATION IS) is optional to provide compatibility with those (few) COBOL implementations that consider ORGANIZATION to be optional. Most COBOL implementations do require the word ORGANIZATION, so it should be used in new programs.
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL instead).
USAGE DISPLAY or USAGE COMPUTATIONAL (of any variety) data since no binary data sequence can be accidentally interpreted as an end-of-record delimiter.
ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL file may be defined as having variable-length records, the file will be structured in such a manner as to reserve space for each record equal to the size of the largest possible record, based on the file’s description in the FILE SECTION.
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL clause is optional because, if absent, it will be assumed anyway for this type of file. The internal structure of these files is such that they can only be processed in a sequential manner; in order to read the 100th record in such a file, for example, you first must read records 1 through 99.
[ ORGANIZATION|ORGANISATION IS ] LINE SEQUENTIAL
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ PADDING CHARACTER IS literal-1 | identifier-1 ]
~~~~~~~
The PADDING CHARACTER clause is syntactically recognized but is otherwise non-functional.
Files declared as ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL will consist of records terminated by an end-of-record delimiter character or character sequence.
CHARACTER, IS and MODE are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION and ORGANISATION are interchangeable.
ORGANIZATION IS (and its internationalized alternative, ORGANISATION IS) is optional to provide compatibility with those (few) COBOL implementations that consider that word to be optional. Most COBOL implementations do require the word ORGANIZATION, so it should be used in new programs.
ORGANIZATION valid for files that are assigned to the PRINTER device.
USAGE COMPUTATIONAL or BINARY (of any variety) data since such fields could accidentally contain byte sequences that could be interpreted as an end-of-record delimiter.
X‘0A’ (an ASCII line-feed character) or a X‘0D0A’ (an ASCII carriage-return + line-feed sequence). The former is used on Unix implementations of GnuCOBOL (including Windows/MinGW, Windows/Cygwin and OSX implementations) while the latter would be used with native Windows implementations.
LINE SEQUENTIAL file, records in excess of the size implied by the file’s description in the FILE SECTION will be truncated while records shorter than that size will be padded to the right with SPACES.
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL clause is optional because, if absent, it will be assumed anyway for this type of file. The internal structure of these files is such that the data can only be processed in a sequential manner; in order to read the 100th record in such a file, for example, you first must read records 1 through 99.
PRINTER or CONSOLE should be specified as ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL.
[ ORGANIZATION|ORGANISATION IS ] RELATIVE
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ ACCESS MODE IS { SEQUENTIAL } ]
~~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ DYNAMIC }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ RANDOM }
~~~~~~
[ RELATIVE KEY IS identifier-1 ]
~~~~~~~~
These files are files with an internal organization such that records may be processed in a sequential manner based upon their physical location in the file or in a random manner by allowing records to be read, written or updated by specifying the relative record number in the file.
IS, KEY and MODE are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION and ORGANISATION are interchangeable.
ORGANIZATION IS (and its internationalized alternative, ORGANISATION IS) is optional to provide compatibility with those (few) COBOL implementations that consider that word to be optional. Most COBOL implementations do require the word ORGANIZATION, so it should be used in new programs.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE files cannot be assigned to the CONSOLE, DISPLAY, LINE ADVANCING or PRINTER devices.
RELATIVE KEY clause is optional only if ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL is specified.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE file may be defined as having variable-length records, the file will be structured in such a manner as to reserve space for each record equal to the size of the largest possible record as defined by the file’s description in the FILE SECTION.
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL, the default ACCESS MODE if none is specified, indicates that the records of the file will be processed in a sequential manner, according to their physical sequence in the file.
ACCESS MODE RANDOM means that records will be processed in random sequence by specifying their record number in the file every time the file is read or written.
ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC indicates the program may switch back and forth between SEQUENTIAL and RANDOM mode during execution. The file starts out initially in SEQUENTIAL mode when first opened but the program may use the START statement (see START) to switch between sequential and random access.
RELATIVE KEY data item is a numeric data item that cannot be defined as a field within records of this file. Its purpose is to return the current relative record number of a relative file that is being processed in SEQUENTIAL access mode and to serve as a key that specifies the relative record number to be read or written when processing a relative file in RANDOM access mode.
[ ORGANIZATION|ORGANISATION IS ] INDEXED
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ ACCESS MODE IS { SEQUENTIAL } ]
~~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ DYNAMIC }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ RANDOM }
~~~~~~
[ RECORD KEY IS { [ data-name-1 ]
~~~~~~
{ [ record-key-name-1 ]
[ =|{SOURCE IS} data-name-2 ] ... ] }
~~~~~~
[ ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS { [ data-name-3 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
{ [ record-key-name-2 ]
[ =|{SOURCE IS} data-name-4 ] ... ] }
~~~~~~
[ WITH DUPLICATES ] ]...
~~~~~~~~~~
[ SUPPRESS WHEN ALL literal ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ SUPPRESS WHEN SPACES | ZEROES ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
Indexed files, like relative files, may have their records processed in either a sequential or random manner. Unlike relative files, however, the actual location of a record in an indexed file is calculated automatically based upon the value(s) of one or more alphanumeric fields within records of the file. For example, an indexed file containing product data might use the product identification code as a record key. This means you may read, write or update the A6G4328th record or the Z8X7723th record directly, based upon the product id value of those records!
IS, KEY and MODE are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION and ORGANISATION are interchangeable.
ORGANIZATION IS (and its internationalized alternative, ORGANISATION IS) is optional to provide compatibility with those (few) COBOL implementations that consider that word to be optional. Most COBOL implementations do require the word ORGANIZATION, so it should be used in new programs.
ORGANIZATION INDEXED files cannot be assigned to CONSOLE, DISPLAY, KEYBOARD, LINE ADVANCING or PRINTER.
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL, the default ACCESS MODE if none is specified, indicates that the records of the file will be processed in a sequential manner with respect to the values of the RECORD KEY or the ALTERNATE RECORD KEY most-recently referenced on a START statement (see START).
ACCESS MODE RANDOM means that records will be processed in random sequence by accessing the record with specific record key or alternate record key values.
ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC allows the file will be processed either in RANDOM or SEQUENTIAL mode; the program may switch between the two modes as needed. The START statement is used to make the switch between modes.
RECORD KEY clause defines the field within the record used to provide the primary access to records within the file. No two records in the file will be allowed to have the same PRIMARY KEY field value. The
SOURCE IS clause is for use with
Split Keys.
ALTERNATE RECORD KEY clause, if used, defines an additional field within the record that provides an alternate means of directly accessing records or an additional field by which the file’s contents may be processed sequentially. You have the choice of allowing records to have duplicate alternate key values, if necessary.
ALTERNATE RECORD KEY clauses, each defining an additional alternate key for the file.
SUPPRESS WHEN clause is used when
Sparse Keys are required which may take the form for a literal or spaces or zeroes.
SAME { SORT-MERGE } AREA FOR file-name-1... .
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ SORT }
{ ~~~~ }
{ RECORD }
~~~~~~
The
SAME SORT-MERGE and
SAME SORT
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The SAME RECORD AREA clause allows you to specify that multiple files should share the same input and output memory buffers.
AREA and FOR are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
MULTIPLE FILE TAPE CONTAINS
~~~~~~~~
{ file-name-1 [ POSITION integer-1 ] }...
~~~~~~~~
.
The MULTIPLE FILE TAPE clause is obsolete and is therefore recognized but not functional.
DATA DIVISION.
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ FILE SECTION.
~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ File/Sort-Description [ { FILE-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... }... ]
{ { 01-Level-Constant } }
{ { 78-Level-Constant } }
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
[ WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ { WORKING-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... ]
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
[ LOCAL-STORAGE SECTION.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ { LOCAL-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... ]
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
[ LINKAGE SECTION.
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ { LINKAGE-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... ]
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
[ REPORT SECTION.
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ Report-Description [ { Report-Group-Definition } ]... }... ]
{ { 01-Level-Constant } }
{ { 78-Level-Constant } }
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
[ SCREEN SECTION.
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ { SCREEN-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... ]
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
All data used by any COBOL program must be defined in one of the six sections of the data division, depending upon the purpose of the data.
DATA DIVISION. header itself may be omitted.
GnuCOBOL data items, like those of other COBOL implementations, are described in a hierarchical manner. This accommodates the fact that data items frequently need to be able to be broken up into subordinate items. Take for example, the following logical layout of a portion of a data item named Employee:
Employee
| Additional
:----------------:----------------:--> Data Items ...
| |
Employee-name Employment-Dates
| |
:---------:-------------: :-------:-------:
| | | | |
Last-Name First-Name Middle-Initial From-Date To-Date
| |
:----:----: :----:----:
| | | | | |
Year Month Day Year Month Day
The Employee data item consists of two subordinate data items — an Employee-Name and an Employment-Dates data item (presumably there would be a lot of others too, but we don’t care about them right now). As the diagram shows, each of those data items are, in turn, broken down into subordinate data items. This hierarchy of data items can get rather deep, and GnuCOBOL, like other COBOL implementations, can handle up to 49 levels of such hierarchical structures.
As was presented earlier (see Structured Data), a data item that is broken down into other data items is referred to as a group item, while one that isn’t broken down is called an elementary item.
COBOL uses the concept of a level number to indicate the level at which a data item occurs in a data structure such as the example shown above. When these data items are defined, they are all defined together with a number in the range 1-49 specified in front of their names. Over the years, a convention has come to exist among COBOL programmers that level numbers are always coded as two-digit numbers — they don’t need to be specified as two-digit numbers, but every example you see in this document will take that approach!
The data item at the top, also referred to as a record, always has a level number of 01. After that, you may assign level numbers as you wish (01–02–03–04…, 01–05–10–15…, etc.), as long as you follow these simple rules:
So, the definition of these data items in a GnuCOBOL program would go something like this:
01 Employee
05 Employee-Name
10 Last-Name
10 First-Name
10 Middle-Initial
05 Employment-Dates
10 From-Date
15 Year
15 Month
15 Day
10 To-Date
15 Year
15 Month
15 Day
The indentation is purely at the discretion of the programmer to make things easier for humans to read (the compiler couldn’t care less). Historically, COBOL implementations that required Fixed Format Mode source programs required that the 01 level number begin in Area A and that everything else begins in Area B. GnuCOBOL only requires that all data definition syntax occur in columns 8-72. In Free Format Mode, of course, there aren’t even those limitations.
Did you notice that there are two each of Year, Month and Day data names defined? That’s perfectly legal, provided that each can be uniquely qualified so as to be distinct from the other. Take for example the Year items. One is defined as part of the From-Date data item while the other is defined as part of the To-Date data item. In COBOL, we would actually code references to these two data items as either Year OF From-Date and Year OF To-Date or Year IN From-Date and Year IN To-Date (COBOL allows either IN or OF to be used). Since these references would clarify any confusion to us as to which Year might be referenced, the GnuCOBOL compiler won’t be confused either.
The coding example shown above is incomplete; it only describes the data item names and their hierarchical relationships to one other. In addition, any valid data item definitions will also need to describe what type of data is to be contained in a data item (Numeric? Alphanumeric? Alphabetic?), how much data can be held in the data item and a multitude of other characteristics.
When group items are being defined, subordinate items may be assigned the “name”
FILLER. There may be any number of FILLER items defined within a group item. A data item named FILLER cannot be referenced directly; these items are generally used to specify an unused portion of the total storage allocated to a group item. Note that it is possible that the name of the group item itself might be specified as FILLER if there is no need to ever refer directly to the group structure itself.
[ FILE SECTION.
~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ File/Sort-Description [ { FILE-SECTION-Data-Item } ]... }... ]
{ { 01-Level-Constant } }
{ { 78-Level-Constant } }
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
Every file that has been referenced by a SELECT statement (see SELECT) must also be described in the file section of the data division.
Files destined for use as sort/merge work files must be described with a Sort/Merge File Description (SD) while every other file is described with a File Description (FD). Each of these descriptions will almost always be followed with at least one record description.
FD|SD file-name-1 [ IS EXTERNAL|GLOBAL ]
~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
[ BLOCK CONTAINS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 CHARACTERS|RECORDS ]
~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ CODE-SET IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~
[ DATA { RECORD IS } identifier-1... ]
~~~~ { ~~~~~~ }
{ RECORDS ARE }
~~~~~~~
[ LABEL { RECORD IS } OMITTED|STANDARD ]
~~~~~ { ~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
{ RECORDS ARE }
~~~~~~~
[ LINAGE IS integer-3 | identifier-2 LINES
~~~~~~
[ LINES AT BOTTOM integer-4 | identifier-3 ]
~~~~~~
[ LINES AT TOP integer-5 | identifier-4 ]
~~~
[ WITH FOOTING AT integer-6 | identifier-5 ] ]
~~~~~~~
[ RECORD { CONTAINS [ integer-7 TO ] integer-8 CHARACTERS } ]
~~~~~~ { ~~ }
{ IS VARYING IN SIZE }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ [ FROM [ integer-7 TO ] integer-8 CHARACTERS }
{ ~~ }
{ DEPENDING ON identifier-6 ] }
~~~~~~~~~
[ RECORDING MODE IS recording-mode ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ { REPORT IS } report-name-1... ]
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ REPORTS ARE }
~~~~~~~
[ VALUE OF implementor-name-1 IS literal-1 | identifier-7 ] .
~~~~~ ~~
The
BLOCK CONTAINS,
DATA RECORD,
LABEL RECORD,
RECORDING MODE and
VALUE OF
clauses are syntactically recognized but are obsolete and non-functional. These clauses should not be coded in new programs.
ARE, AT, CHARACTERS (RECORD clause only), CONTAINS, FROM, IN, IS, ON and WITH are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
RECORD IS and RECORDS ARE are interchangeable.
REPORT IS and REPORTS ARE are interchangeable.
SORT (see SORT) or MERGE (see MERGE) statements should be coded with an SD — all others should be defined with a FD.
FD or SD, as compared to the sequence in which their SELECT statements were coded, is irrelevant.
SELECT statement.
CODE-SET clause allows a custom alphabet, defined in the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph, to be associated with a file. This clause is valid only when used with sequential or line sequential files.
LINAGE clause may only be specified in the FD of a sequential or line sequential file. If used with a sequential file, the organization of that file will be implicitly changed to line sequential. The various components of the LINAGE clause define the layout of printed pages as follows:
Number of unused (i.e. left blank) lines at the top of every page. The default if this if not specified is zero.
Number of unused (i.e. left blank) lines at the bottom of every page. The default if this if not specified is zero.
Total number of used/usable lines on the page.
Line number beyond which nothing may be printed except for any footing that is to appear on every page. The default for this if not specified is zero, meaning there will be no footings. This value cannot be larger than the LINAGE IS n LINES value.
WRITE statement (see WRITE).
LINAGE clause in an FD will cause the
LINAGE-COUNTER special register to be created for the file. This automatically-created data item will always contain the current relative line number on the page being prepared which will serve as the starting point for a WRITE statement.
RECORD CONTAINS and
RECORD IS VARYING clauses are ignored (with a warning message issued) when used with line sequential files. With other file organizations, these mutually-exclusive clauses define the length of data records within the file. The data item specified as identifier-6 must be defined within one of the record descriptions of file-name-1.
REPORT IS clause announces to the compiler that the file will be dedicated to the Report Writer Control System (RWCS); the clause names one or more reports, each to be described in the report section. The following special rules apply when the REPORT clause is used:
FD of a sequential or line sequential file. If used with a sequential file, the organization of that file will be implicitly changed to line sequential.
FD cannot be followed by record descriptions. Detailed descriptions of data to be printed to the file will be defined in the REPORT SECTION (see REPORT SECTION).
LINAGE clause is also specified, Values specified for LINAGE IS and FOOTING AT will be ignored. The values of LINES AT BOTTOM and LINES AT TOP, if any, will be honoured.
DISK (or DISC) on their SELECT statements.
TMPDIR run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables)
TMP run-time environment variable
TEMP run-time environment variable
(in that order).
SORT or MERGE termination. They will also be purged if the program terminates abnormally before the SORT or MERGE finishes. Should you ever need to know, temporary sort/merge work files will be named cob*.tmp.
SELECT, it will be ignored.
EXTERNAL and GLOBAL options.
level-number [ identifier-1 | FILLER ] [ IS GLOBAL|EXTERNAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ ASCENDING|DESCENDING KEY IS identifier-3 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ INDEXED BY identifier-4 ] ]
~~~~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ REDEFINES identifier-5 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE [CHARACTER] ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ USAGE IS data-item-usage ] . [ FILE-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
~~~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
Every sort file description (SD or FD) must be followed by at least one 01-level data item, except for file descriptions containing the REPORT IS clause. These 01-level data items, in turn, may be broken down into subordinate group and elementary items. An 01-level data item defined here in the file section is also known as a
Record, even if it is an elementary item, provided that elementary item lacks the
CONSTANT attribute.
BY, IS, KEY, ON and WHEN are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SYNCRONIZED and SYNCRONIZED are interchangeable. Both may be abbreviated to SYNC.
PICTURE may be abbreviated to PIC.
signifies the start of another record layout for the file.
FD or SD is foundmarks the completion of the detailed description of the file and begins another.
also marks the completion of the detailed description of the file and signifies the end of the file section as well.
FD or SD, the one with the longest length will define the size of the record buffer into which a READ statement (see READ) or a RETURN statement (see RETURN) will deliver data read from the file and from which a WRITE statement (see WRITE) or RELEASE statement (see RELEASE) statement will obtain the data to be written to the file.
SAME RECORD AREA (see SAME RECORD AREA) clause.
FILLER immediately after the level number has the same effect as if FILLER were specified. A data item named FILLER cannot be referenced directly; these items are generally used to specify an unused portion of the total storage allocated to a group item or to describe a group item whose contents which will only be referenced using the names of those items that belong to it.
EXTERNAL cannot be combined with GLOBAL or REDEFINES.
level-number [ identifier-1 | FILLER ] [ IS GLOBAL | EXTERNAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ BASED ]
~~~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ ASCENDING|DESCENDING KEY IS identifier-3 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ INDEXED BY identifier-4 ] ]
~~~~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ REDEFINES identifier-5 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ USAGE IS data-item-usage ]
~~~~~
[ VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-1 ] . [ WORKING-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
~~~~~ ~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The working-storage section is used to describe data items that are not part of files, screens or reports and whose data values persist throughout the execution of the program.
BY, CHARACTER, IS, KEY, ON, RIGHT (JUSTIFIED), TIMES and WHEN are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SYNCRONIZED and SYNCHRONISED are interchangeable. Both may be abbreviated as SYNC.
PICTURE may be abbreviated to PIC.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated to JUST.
WORKING-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item is a recursive one in that there may be any number of such specifications coded following one another. The first such specification must have a level number of 01. Specifications that follow that one may have level numbers greater than 01, in which case they are defining a hierarchical breakdown of a record. The definition of a record is terminated when one of the following occurs:
WORKING-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item description must be terminated with a period.
FILLER immediately after the level number has the same effect as if FILLER were specified. A data item named FILLER cannot be referenced directly; these items are generally used to specify an unused portion of the total storage allocated to a group item or to describe a group item whose contents which will only be referenced using the names of those items that belong to it.
CANCEL statement (see CANCEL)), in which case initialization will happen each time they are loaded. See Data Initialization, for a discussion of the initialization rules.
level-number [ identifier-1 | FILLER ] [ IS GLOBAL|EXTERNAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ BASED ]
~~~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ ASCENDING|DESCENDING KEY IS identifier-3 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ INDEXED BY identifier-4 ] ]
~~~~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ REDEFINES identifier-5 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ USAGE IS data-item-usage ]
~~~~~
[ VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-1 ] . [ LOCAL-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
~~~~~ ~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The local-storage section is similar to working-storage, but describes data within a subprogram that will be dynamically allocated and initialized (automatically) each time the subprogram is executed. See Data Initialization, for the rules of data initialization.
BY, CHARACTER IS, KEY, ON, RIGHT (JUSTIFIED), TIMES and WHEN are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SYNCRONIZED and SYNCHRONISED are interchangeable. Both may be abbreviated as SYNC.
PICTURE may be abbreviated to PIC.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated to JUST.
LOCAL-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item is a recursive one in that there may be any number of such specifications coded following one another. The first such specification must have a level number of 01. Specifications that follow that one may have level numbers greater than 01, in which case they are defining a hierarchical breakdown of a record. The definition of a record is terminated when one of the following occurs:
LOCAL-STORAGE-SECTION-Data-Item description must be terminated with a period.
FILLER immediately after the level number has the same effect as if FILLER were specified. A data item named FILLER cannot be referenced directly; these items are generally used to specify an unused portion of the total storage allocated to a group item or to describe a group item whose contents which will only be referenced using the names of those items that belong to it.
level-number [ identifier-1 | FILLER ] [ IS GLOBAL|EXTERNAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ ANY LENGTH ]
~~~ ~~~~~~
[ BASED ]
~~~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-3 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ ASCENDING|DESCENDING KEY IS identifier-4 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ INDEXED BY identifier-5 ] ]
~~~~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ REDEFINES identifier-6 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ USAGE IS data-item-usage ] . [ LINKAGE-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
~~~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The linkage section describes data within a subprogram that serves as either input arguments to or output results from the subprogram.
BY, CHARACTER, IS, KEY, ON and WHEN are optional and may be included, or not, at the discretion of the programmer. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SYNCRONIZED and “SYNCHRONISED” are interchangeable. Both may be abbreviated as SYNC.
PICTURE may be abbreviated to PIC.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated to JUST.
LINKAGE-SECTION-Data-Item is a recursive one in that there may be any number of such specifications coded following one another. The first such specification must have a level number of 01. Specifications that follow that one may have level numbers greater than 01, in which case they are defining a hierarchical breakdown of a record. The definition of a record is terminated when one of the following occurs:
LINKAGE-SECTION-Data-Item description must be terminated with a period.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION USING) or as arguments on an ENTRY statement.
CALL statement (see CALL) or an argument on a function call to the subprogram.
FILLER immediately after the level number has the same effect as if FILLER were specified. A data item named FILLER cannot be referenced directly; these items are generally used to specify an unused portion of the total storage allocated to a group item or to describe a group item whose contents which will only be referenced using the names of those items that belong to it. In the linkage section, 01-level data items cannot be named FILLER.
ALLOCATE statement (see ALLOCATE) statement. In such cases, initialization will take place as per the documentation of that statement.
[ REPORT SECTION.
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ Report-Description [ { Report-Group-Definition } ]... }... ]
{ { 01-Level-Constant } }
{ { 78-Level-Constant } }
{ 01-Level-Constant }
{ 78-Level-Constant }
RD report-name [ IS GLOBAL ]
~~ ~~~~~~
[ CODE IS literal-1 | identifier-1 ]
~~~~
[ { CONTROL IS } { FINAL }... ]
{ ~~~~~~~ } { ~~~~~ }
{ CONTROLS ARE } { identifier-2 }
~~~~~~~~
[ PAGE [ { LIMIT IS } ] [ { literal-2 } LINES ]
~~~~ { ~~~~~ } { identifier-3 } ~~~~
{ LIMITS ARE }
~~~~~~
[ literal-3 | identifier-4 COLUMNS|COLS ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~
[ HEADING IS literal-4 | identifier-5 ]
~~~~~~~
[ FIRST DE|DETAIL IS literal-5 | identifier-6 ]
~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~
[ LAST CH|{CONTROL HEADING} IS literal-6 | identifier-7 ]
~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ LAST DE|DETAIL IS literal-7 | identifier-8 ]
~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~
[ FOOTING IS literal-8 | identifier-9 ] ] .
~~~~~~~
This section describes the layout of printed reports as well as many of the functional aspects of the generation of reports that will be produced via the Report Writer Control System. It is important to maintain the order of these clauses and ensure that all fields defined or referenced with this section are actually defined in the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION and not elsewhere.
ARE and IS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
CONTROL IS and CONTROLS ARE are interchangeable, as are the PAGE LIMIT and PAGE LIMITS phrases.
LINES may be abbreviated as LINE.
COLUMNS may be abbreviated as COLS.
REPORT IS clause (see File/Sort-Description) must be described with a report description (RD).
GLOBAL option.
PAGE LIMITS clause:
PAGE LIMITS clause is specified, the entire report will be generated as if it consists of a single arbitrarily long page.
LINES AT TOP and LINES AT BOTTOM values specified on the LINAGE clause of the FD this RD is linked to — see File/Sort-Description).
HEADING clause defines the first line number at which a report heading or page heading may be presented.
FIRST DETAIL clause defines the first line at which a detail group may be presented.
LAST CONTROL HEADING clause defines the last line at which any line of a control heading may be presented.
LAST DETAIL clause defines the last line at which any line of a detail group may be presented.
FOOTING clause defines the last line at which any line of a control footing group may be presented.
PAGE LIMIT clauses, assuming there is one:
HEADINGdefault is one (1)
FIRST DETAIL HEADINGvalue is used
LAST CONTROL HEADINGvalue from LAST DETAIL or, if that is absent, the value from FOOTING or, if that too is absent, the value from PAGE LIMIT
LAST DETAILvalue from FOOTING or, if that is absent, the value from PAGE LIMIT
FOOTINGvalue from LAST DETAIL or, if that is absent, the value from PAGE LIMIT
PAGE LIMIT clause to be valid, all of the following must be true:
FIRST DETAIL ≤ HEADING
LAST CONTROL HEADING ≤ FIRST DETAIL
LAST DETAIL ≤ LAST CONTROL HEADING
FOOTING ≤ LAST DETAIL
CONTROL clause:
CONTROL clause, the report will contain no control breaks; this implies that there can be no CONTROL HEADING or CONTROL FOOTING report groups defined for this RD.
FINAL if you want to include a special control heading before the first detail line is generated (CONTROL HEADING FINAL) or after the last detail line is generated (CONTROL FOOTING FINAL).
FINAL, it must be the first control break named in the RD.
CONTROL clause are referencing data names defined in any data division section except for the report section.
CONTROL HEADING and/or CONTROL FOOTING report group defined in the report section for each identifier-9.
GENERATE statement (see GENERATE) is executed against a detail report group defined for this RD, the RWCS will check the contents of each identifier-2 data item; whenever an identifier-9’s value has changed since the previous GENERATE, a control break condition will be in effect for that identifier-2.
CONTROL FOOTING for each identifier-2 having a control break (if any such report group is defined) will be presented.
CONTROL HEADING for each identifier-2 having a control break (if any such report group is defined) will be presented.
CONTROL FOOTING and CONTROL HEADING report groups will be presented in the sequence in which they are listed on the CONTROL clause.
GENERATE be presented.
RD will have the following allocated for it:
PAGE-COUNTER special register (see Special Registers), which will contain the current report page number.
INITIATE statement (see INITIATE) is executed for the report and will be incremented by 1 each time the RWCS starts a new page of the report.
PAGE-COUNTER within the report section will be implicitly qualified with the name of the report to which the report group referencing the register belongs.
PAGE-COUNTER in the procedure division must be qualified with the appropriate report name if there are multiple RDs defined.
LINE-COUNTER special register, which will contain the current line number on the current page.
RD must be followed by at least one 01-level report group definition.
01 [ identifier-1 ]
[ LINE NUMBER IS { integer-1 [ [ ON NEXT PAGE ] } ]
~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ +|PLUS integer-1 }
{ ~~~~ }
{ ON NEXT PAGE }
~~~~ ~~~~
[ NEXT GROUP IS { [ +|PLUS ] integer-2 } ]
~~~~ ~~~~~ { ~~~~ }
{ NEXT|{NEXT PAGE}|PAGE }
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
[ TYPE IS { RH|{REPORT HEADING} } ]
~~~~ { ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ PH|{PAGE HEADING} }
{ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ CH|{CONTROL HEADING} FINAL|identifier-2 }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ DE|DETAIL }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~ }
{ CF|{CONTROL FOOTING} FINAL|identifier-2 }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ PF|{PAGE FOOTING} }
{ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ RF|{REPORT FOOTING} }
~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
. [ REPORT-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
The syntax shown here documents how a report group is defined to a report. This syntax is valid only in the report section, and only then after an RD.
IS, NUMBER and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
RH and REPORT HEADING terms are interchangeable, as are PH and PAGE HEADING, CH and CONTROL HEADING, DE and DETAIL, CF and CONTROL FOOTING, PF and PAGE FOOTING as well as RF and REPORT FOOTING.
RD.
TYPE (see TYPE) clause specifies the type of report group being defined.
GENERATE statement or on a USE BEFORE REPORTING.
RD) may named with the same identifier-1. There may, however, be multiple identifier-1 definitions in different reports. In such instances, references to identifier-1 must be qualified by the report name.
REPORT-SECTION-Data-Item with a level number in the range 02-49.
level-number [ identifier-1 ]
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ COLUMN [ { NUMBER IS } ] [ +|PLUS ] integer-1 ]
~~~ { ~~~~~~ } ~~~~
{ NUMBERS ARE }
~~~~~~~
[ GROUP INDICATE ]
~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ LINE NUMBER IS { integer-2 [ [ ON NEXT PAGE ] } ]
~~~~ { +|PLUS integer-2 ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ ~~~~ }
{ ON NEXT PAGE }
~~~~ ~~~~
[ OCCURS [ integer-3 TO ] integer-4 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ STEP integer-5 ]
~~~~
[ VARYING identifier-3 FROM { identifier-4 } BY { identifier-5 } ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { integer-6 } ~~ { integer-7 }
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ PRESENT WHEN condition-name ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ { SOURCE IS literal-1|identifier-6 [ ROUNDED ] } ]
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ SUM OF { identifier-7 }... [ { RESET ON FINAL|identifier-8 } ] }
{ ~~~ { literal-2 } { ~~~~~ ~~~~~ } }
{ VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-3 { UPON identifier-9 } }
~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~
. [ REPORT-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
Data item descriptions describing the report lines and fields that make up the substance of a report group immediately follow the definition of that group.
IS, NUMBER, OF, ON, RIGHT, TIMES and WHEN (BLANK) are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
COLUMN may be abbreviated as COL.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated as JUST.
PICTURE may be abbreviated as PIC.
SOURCE (see SOURCE), SUM (see SUM) and VALUE (see VALUE) clauses, valid only on an elementary item, are mutually-exclusive of each other.
PICTURE clauses) are frequently used to describe entire lines of a report, while elementary items (those with a picture clause) are frequently used to describe specific fields of information on the report. When this coding convention is being used, group items will have LINE (see LINE) clauses and no COLUMN (see COLUMN) clauses while elementary items will be specified the other way around.
level-number [ identifier-1 | FILLER ]
~~~~~~
[ AUTO | AUTO-SKIP | AUTOTERMINATE ] [ BELL | BEEP ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
[ BACKGROUND-COLOR|BACKGROUND-COLOUR IS integer-1 | identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ BLANK LINE|SCREEN ] [ ERASE EOL|EOS ]
~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ] [ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
[ BLINK ] [ HIGHLIGHT | LOWLIGHT ] [ REVERSE-VIDEO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ COLUMN NUMBER IS [ +|PLUS ] integer-2 | identifier-3 ]
~~~ ~~~~
[ FOREGROUND-COLOR|FOREGROUND-COLOUR IS integer-3 | identifier-4 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ { FROM literal-1 | identifier-5 } ]
{ ~~~~ }
{ TO identifier-5 }
{ ~~ }
{ USING identifier-5 }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-1 }
~~~~~ ~~~
[ FULL | LENGTH-CHECK ] [ REQUIRED | EMPTY-CHECK ] [ SECURE | NO-ECHO ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ LEFTLINE ] [ OVERLINE ] [ UNDERLINE ]
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ LINE NUMBER IS [ +|PLUS ] integer-4 | identifier-6 ]
~~~~ ~~~~
[ OCCURS integer-5 TIMES ]
~~~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ PROMPT [ CHARACTER IS literal-2 | identifier-7 ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
. [ SCREEN-SECTION-Data-Item ]...
The screen section describes the screens to be displayed during terminal/console I-O.
CHARACTER (SEPARATE clause), IS, NUMBER, RIGHT, TIMES and WHEN are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
COLUMN may be abbreviated as COL.
PICTURE may be abbreviated as PIC.
AUTO, AUTO-SKIP and AUTOTERMINATE
BACKGROUND-COLOR and BACKGROUND-COLOUR
BELL and BEEP
FOREGROUND-COLOR and FOREGROUND-COLOUR
FULL and LENGTH-CHECK
REQUIRED and EMPTY-CHECK
SECURE and NO-ECHO
ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) or DISPLAY screen-data-item statement (see DISPLAY screen-data-item) statements. These screen layouts may define the entire available screen area or any subset of it.
LINE (see LINE) or COLUMN (see COLUMN) clauses, screen section fields will display on the console window beginning at whatever line/column coordinate is stated or implied by the ACCEPT screen-data-item or DISPLAY screen-data-item statement that presents the screen item. After a field is presented to the console window, the next field will be presented immediately following that field.
LINE clause explicitly stated in the definition of a screen section data item will override any LINE clause included on the ACCEPT screen-data-item or DISPLAY screen-data-item statement that presents that data item to the screen. The same is true of COLUMN clauses.
01 constant-name-1 CONSTANT [ IS GLOBAL ]
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
{ AS { literal-1 } } .
{ { { BYTE-LENGTH } OF { identifier-1 } } }
{ { { ~~~~~~~~~~~ } { usage-name } } }
{ { { LENGTH } } }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ FROM CDF-variable-name-1 }
~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, SCREEN.
The 01-level constant is one of four types of compilation-time constants that can be declared within a program. The other three types are >>DEFINE CDF directive (see >>DEFINE) constants, >>SET CDF directive (see >>SET) constants and 78-level constants (see 78-Level Data Items).
AS, IS and OF are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
GLOBAL option.
USAGE (see USAGE) type — something not possible with the other types of constants.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION is encountered in the input source.
BYTE-LENGTH or
LENGTH options) or a literal of the same type as literal-1 may be used.
USAGE that does not use a PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause. These would be any of BINARY-C-LONG, BINARY-CHAR, BINARY-DOUBLE, BINARY-LONG, BINARY-SHORT, COMP-1 (or COMPUTATIONAL-1), COMP-2 (or COMPUTATIONAL-2), FLOAT-DECIMAL-16, FLOAT-DECIMAL-34, FLOAT-LONG, FLOAT-SHORT, POINTER, or PROGRAM-POINTER.
BYTE-LENGTH clause will produce a numeric value for constant-name-1 identical to that which would be returned by the BYTE-LENGTH intrinsic function executed against identifier-1 or a data item declared with a USAGE of usage-name.
LENGTH clause will produce a numeric value for constant-name-1 identical to that which would be returned by the LENGTH intrinsic function executed against identifier-1 or a data item declared with a USAGE of usage-name.
Here is the listing of a GnuCOBOL program that uses 01-level constants to display the length (in bytes) of the various picture-less usage types.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. Usage Lengths.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Len-BINARY-C-LONG CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF BINARY-C-LONG.
01 Len-BINARY-CHAR CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF BINARY-CHAR.
01 Len-BINARY-DOUBLE CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF BINARY-DOUBLE.
01 Len-BINARY-LONG CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF BINARY-LONG.
01 Len-BINARY-SHORT CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF BINARY-SHORT.
01 Len-COMP-1 CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF COMP-1.
01 Len-COMP-2 CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF COMP-2.
01 Len-FLOAT-DECIMAL-16 CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF FLOAT-DECIMAL-16.
01 Len-FLOAT-DECIMAL-34 CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF FLOAT-DECIMAL-34.
01 Len-FLOAT-LONG CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF FLOAT-LONG.
01 Len-FLOAT-SHORT CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF FLOAT-SHORT.
01 Len-POINTER CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF POINTER.
01 Len-PROGRAM-POINTER CONSTANT AS LENGTH OF PROGRAM-POINTER.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
DISPLAY "On this system, with this build of GnuCOBOL, the"
DISPLAY "PICTURE-less USAGE's have these lengths (in bytes):"
DISPLAY " "
DISPLAY "BINARY-C-LONG: " Len-BINARY-C-LONG
DISPLAY "BINARY-CHAR: " Len-BINARY-CHAR
DISPLAY "BINARY-DOUBLE: " Len-BINARY-DOUBLE
DISPLAY "BINARY-LONG: " Len-BINARY-LONG
DISPLAY "BINARY-SHORT: " Len-BINARY-SHORT
DISPLAY "COMP-1: " Len-COMP-1
DISPLAY "COMP-2: " Len-COMP-2
DISPLAY "FLOAT-DECIMAL-16: " Len-FLOAT-DECIMAL-16
DISPLAY "FLOAT-DECIMAL-34: " Len-FLOAT-DECIMAL-34
DISPLAY "FLOAT-LONG: " Len-FLOAT-LONG
DISPLAY "FLOAT-SHORT: " Len-FLOAT-SHORT
DISPLAY "POINTER: " Len-POINTER
DISPLAY "PROGRAM-POINTER: " Len-PROGRAM-POINTER
STOP RUN
.
The output of this program, on a Windows 7 system with a 32-bit MinGW build of GnuCOBOL is:
On this system, with this build of GnuCOBOL, the
PICTURE-less USAGE's have these lengths (in bytes):
BINARY-C-LONG: 4
BINARY-CHAR: 1
BINARY-DOUBLE: 8
BINARY-LONG: 4
BINARY-SHORT: 2
COMP-1: 4
COMP-2: 8
FLOAT-DECIMAL-16: 8
FLOAT-DECIMAL-34: 16
FLOAT-LONG: 8
FLOAT-SHORT: 4
POINTER: 4
PROGRAM-POINTER: 4
66 identifier-1 RENAMES identifier-2 [ THRU|THROUGH identifier-3 ] .
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
A 66-level data item regroups previously defined items by specifying alternative, possibly overlapping, groupings of elementary data items.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
RENAMES entries associated with one logical record must immediately follow that record’s last data description entry.
77 identifier-1 [ IS GLOBAL|EXTERNAL ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ BASED ]
~~~~~
[ BLANK WHEN ZERO ]
~~~~~ ~~~~
[ JUSTIFIED RIGHT ]
~~~~
[ PICTURE IS picture-string ]
~~~
[ REDEFINES identifier-5 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ]
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ USAGE IS data-item-usage ]
~~~~~
[ VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-1 ] .
~~~~~ ~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
The intent of a 77-level item is to be able to create a stand-alone elementary data item.
CHARACTER, IS, RIGHT (JUSTIFIED) and WHEN are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated as JUST, the reserved word PICTURE may be abbreviated as PIC and the reserved words SYNCRONIZED and SYNCHRONISED may be abbreviated as SYNC.
78 constant-name-1 VALUE IS literal-1 .
~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, SCREEN
The 78-level constant is one of four types of compilation-time constants that can be declared within a program. The other three types are >>DEFINE CDF directive (see >>DEFINE) constants, >>SET CDF directive (see >>SET) constants and 01-level constants (see 01-Level Constants).
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION is encountered in the input source.
88 condition-name-1 { VALUE IS } {literal-1 [ THRU|THROUGH literal-2 ]}...
{ ~~~~~ } ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ VALUES ARE }
~~~~~~
[ WHEN SET TO FALSE IS literal-3 ] .
~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
Condition names are Boolean (i.e. TRUE / FALSE) data items that receive their TRUE and FALSE values based upon the values of the non 88-level data item whose definition they immediately follow.
ARE, IS, SET and TO are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
VALUE (see VALUE) clause, condition-name-1 will take on the value of TRUE.
THROUGH clause allows a range of possible TRUE values to be specified.
VALUE clause, condition-name-1 will take on the value of FALSE.
SET condition-name-1 TO TRUE will cause condition-name-1’s parent data item to take on the first value specified on condition-name-1’s VALUE clause.
SET condition-name-1 TO FALSE will cause condition-name-1’s parent data item to take on the value specified on condition-name-1’s FALSE clause. If condition-name-1 does not have a FALSE clause, the SET (see SET) statement will generate an error message at compilation time.
ANY LENGTH ~~~ ~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
LINKAGE
Data items declared with the ANY LENGTH attribute have no fixed compile-time length. Such items may only be defined in the linkage section of a subprogram as they may only serve as subroutine argument descriptions. These items must have a PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause that specifies exactly one A, X or 9 symbol.
ANY LENGTH and BASED (see BASED) clauses cannot be used together in the same data item description.
AUTO ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
A field whose description includes this attribute will cause the cursor to automatically advance to the next input-enabled field of a screen if the field is completely filled with input data.
AUTO, AUTO-SKIP (see AUTO-SKIP) and AUTOTERMINATE (see AUTOTERMINATE) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
AUTO-SKIP ~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
A field whose description includes this attribute will cause the cursor to automatically advance to the next input-enabled field of a screen if the field is completely filled with input data.
AUTO (see AUTO), AUTO-SKIP and AUTOTERMINATE (see AUTOTERMINATE) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
AUTOTERMINATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
A field whose description includes this attribute will cause the cursor to automatically advance to the next input-enabled field of a screen if the field is completely filled with input data.
AUTO (see AUTO), AUTO-SKIP (see AUTO-SKIP) and AUTOTERMINATE clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
BACKGROUND-COLOR|BACKGROUND-COLOUR IS integer-1 | identifier-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause is used to specify the screen background color of the screen data item or the default screen background color of subordinate items if used on a group item.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
BACKGROUND-COLOR and BACKGROUND-COLOUR are interchangeable.
For composite DISPLAY’s, the attributes are always only applied to the previous source-item but the following also allows a change by variable or literal i.e.
DISPLAY "Name: " BACKGROUND-COLOR COB-YELLOW
NAME-VAR BACKGROUND-COLOR COB-BLACK
END-DISPLAY
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
BASED ~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
Data items declared with BASED are allocated no storage at compilation time. At run-time, the ALLOCATE (see ALLOCATE) or SET ADDRESS (see SET ADDRESS) statements are used to allocate space for and (optionally) initialize such items.
BASED and ANY LENGTH (see ANY LENGTH) clauses cannot be used together in the same data item description.
BASED clause may only be used on level 01 and level 77 data items.
BEEP ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
BEEP and BELL (see BELL) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
DISPLAYed.
BELL ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
BEEP (see BEEP) and BELL clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
DISPLAYed.
BLANK LINE|SCREEN ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause will blank out either the entire screen (BLANK SCREEN) or just the line upon which data is about to be displayed (BLANK LINE).
BLANK clause.
BLANK WHEN ZERO ~~~~~ ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
This clause will cause that item’s value to be automatically transformed into spaces if a value of 0 is ever MOVEd to the item.
WHEN is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
PIC 9 data item with a USAGE (see USAGE) of DISPLAY.
BLINK ~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The BLINK clause modifies the visual appearance of the displayed field by making the field contents blink.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
COLUMN [ { NUMBER IS } ] [ +|PLUS ] integer-1 ]
~~~ { NUMBERS ARE } ~~~~
COLUMN NUMBER IS [ +|PLUS ] integer-2 | identifier-3 ] ~~~ ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT, SCREEN
The COLUMN clause provides the means of stating in which column a field should be presented on the console window (screen section) or a report (report section).
ARE, IS, NUMBER and NUMBERS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
COLUMN may be abbreviated as COL.
LINE (see LINE) clause.
USAGE (see USAGE) other than COMPUTATIONAL-1 or COMPUTATIONAL-2, without editing symbols. The value of identifier-1 at the time the screen data item is presented must be 1 or greater. Note that a COMPUTATIONAL-1 or COMPUTATIONAL-2 identifier will be accepted by the compiler, but will produce unpredictable results at run-time.
COLUMN 5) or on a relative basis based upon the end of the previously-presented field (i.e. COLUMN PLUS 1).
PLUS, if desired; if symbol ‘+’ is used, however, there must be at least one space separating it from integer-1. Failure to include this space will cause the symbol ‘+’ sign to be simply treated as part of integer-1 and will treat the COLUMN clause as an absolute column specification rather than a relative one.
COLUMN PLUS) has slightly different behaviour depending upon the section in which the clause is used, as follows:
COLUMN PLUS will position the start of the new field’s value such that there are integer-1 blank columns between the end of the previous field and the beginning of this field.
If a report data item’s description includes the SOURCE (see SOURCE), SUM (see SUM) or VALUE (see VALUE) clause but has no COLUMN clause, COLUMN PLUS 1 will be assumed.
COLUMN PLUS will position the new field so that it begins exactly integer-1 or identifier-1 characters past the last character of the previous field. Thus, COLUMN PLUS 1 will leave no blank positions between the end of the previous field and the start of this one.
If a screen data item’s description includes the FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO), USING (see USING) or VALUE (see VALUE) clause but has no COLUMN clause, the new screen field will begin at the column coordinate of the last character of the previous field.
CONSTANT ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, SCREEN
This option signifies that the 01-level data item in whose declaration CONSTANT is specified will be treated as a symbolic name for a literal value, usable wherever a literal of the appropriate type could be used.
EMPTY-CHECK ~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause forces the user to enter data into the field it is specified on (or into all subordinate input-capable fields if EMPTY-CHECK is specified on a group item).
EMPTY-CHECK and REQUIRED (see REQUIRED) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) will ignore the Enter key and any other cursor-moving keystrokes that would cause the cursor to move to another screen item unless data has been entered into the field. Function keys will still be allowed to terminate the ACCEPT.
EMPTY-CHECK.
ERASE EOL|EOS ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
ERASE will blank-out screen contents from the location where the screen data item whose description contains this clause will be displayed, forward until the end of the screen (ERASE EOS)
ERASE clause.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
EXTERNAL ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE
This clause marks a data item description, FD or SD see File/Sort-Description as being shareable with other programs executed from the same execution thread.
EXTERNAL clause on either an FD or an SD, the file description is capable of being shared between all programs executed from the same execution thread, provided an EXTERNAL clause is coded with the file’s description in each program requiring it. This sharing allows the file to be opened, read and/or written and closed in different programs. This sharing applies to the record descriptions subordinate to the file description too.
EXTERNAL clause on the description of a data item, the data item is capable of being shared between all programs executed from the same execution thread, provided the data item is coded (with an EXTERNAL clause) in each program requiring it.
EXTERNAL in a data item’s definition:
WHEN SET TO FALSE IS literal-1
~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
This clause, which may only appear on the definition of a level-88 condition name, is used to specify the value of the data item that serves as the parent of the level-88 condition name that will force the condition name to assume a value of FALSE.
IS, SET, TO and WHEN are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FOREGROUND-COLOR|FOREGROUND-COLOUR IS integer-1 | identifier-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause is used to specify the color of text within a screen data item or the default text color of subordinate items if used on a group item.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
FOREGROUND-COLOR and FOREGROUND-COLOUR are interchangeable.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
FROM literal-1 | identifier-5 ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause is used to specify either the data item a screen section field is to obtain its value from when the screen is displayed, or a literal that will specify the value of that same field.
FROM, TO (see TO), USING (see USING) and VALUE (see VALUE) clauses are mutually-exclusive in any screen section data item’s definition.
FULL ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The FULL clause forces the user to enter data into the field it is specified on (or into all subordinate input-capable fields if specified on a group item) sufficient to fill every character position of the field.
FULL and LENGTH-CHECK (see LENGTH-CHECK) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) will ignore the Enter key and any other cursor-moving keystrokes that would cause the cursor to move to another screen item unless the proper amount of data has been entered into the field. Function keys will still be allowed to terminate the ACCEPT, however.
FULL.
GLOBAL ~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, REPORT
This clause marks a data item, 01-level constant, FD (see File/Sort-Description), SD (see File/Sort-Description) or an RD (see REPORT SECTION) as being shareable with any nested subprograms.
GLOBAL clause on the description of a file or a report, that description is capable of being shared between a program and any nested subprograms within it, provided the FD, SD or RD is coded (with a GLOBAL clause) in each nested subprogram requiring it. This sharing allows the file to be opened, read and/or written and closed or the report to be initiated or terminated in those programs. Separately compiled programs may not share a GLOBAL file description, but they may share an EXTERNAL (see EXTERNAL) file description. This sharing applies to the record descriptions subordinate to the file description and the report groups subordinate to the RD also.
GLOBAL clause on the description of a data item, the data item is capable of being shared between a program and any nested subprograms within it, provided the data item is coded (with a GLOBAL clause) in each program requiring it.
GLOBAL in a data item’s definition:
GROUP INDICATE ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
The GROUP INDICATE clause specifies that the data item in whose definition the clause appears will be presented only in very limited circumstances.
DETAIL report group (see TYPE).
INITIATE (see INITIATE) of the report.
HIGHLIGHT ~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause controls the intensity of text (FOREGROUND-COLOR (see FOREGROUND-COLOR)) by setting that intensity to its highest of three possible settings.
LOWLIGHT (see LOWLIGHT), are intended to provide a three-level intensity scheme (LOWLIGHT … nothing (Normal) … HIGHLIGHT).
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
JUSTIFIED RIGHT ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
The presence of a JUSTIFIED RIGHT clause in a data item’s definition alters the manner in which data is stored into the field from the default ’left-justified, space filled’ behaviour to ’right justified, space filled’.
RIGHT is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
JUSTIFIED may be abbreviated as JUST.
PIC A) or alphanumeric (PIC X) data items.
MOVE (see MOVE) statement as well as the FROM (see FROM), SOURCE (see SOURCE) and USING (see USING) data item description clauses.
JUSTIFIED RIGHT clause on that field’s description is irrelevant.
JUSTIFIED RIGHT clause when the field size is different than that of the value being stored. In these examples, the symbol b represents a space.
|
When the value is shorter than the field size:
|
|
When the value is longer than the field size:
|
LEFTLINE ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The LEFTLINE clause will introduce a vertical line at the left edge of a screen field.
LEFTLINE, OVERLINE (see OVERLINE) and UNDERLINE (see UNDERLINE) clauses may be used in any combination in a single field’s description.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
LENGTH-CHECK ~~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The LENGTH-CHECK clause forces the user to enter data into the field it is specified on (or into all subordinate input-capable fields if specified on a group item) sufficient to fill every character position of the field.
FULL (see FULL) and LENGTH-CHECK clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) will ignore the Enter key and any other cursor-moving keystrokes that would cause the cursor to move to another screen item unless the proper amount of data has been entered into the field. Function keys will still be allowed to terminate the ACCEPT, however.
LENGTH-CHECK.
LINE NUMBER IS { integer-2 [ [ ON NEXT PAGE ] }
~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ +|PLUS integer-2 }
{ ~~~~ }
{ ON NEXT PAGE }
~~~~ ~~~~
[ LINE NUMBER IS [ +|PLUS ] integer-4 | identifier-6 ] ~~~~ ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT, SCREEN
This clause provides a means of explicitly stating on which line a field should be presented on the console window (screen section) or on a report (report section).
IS, NUMBER and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
LINE clause:
COLUMN (see COLUMN) clause.
LINE 5) or on a relative basis based upon the previously-displayed line (i.e. LINE PLUS 1).
PLUS, if desired; if ‘+’ is used, however, there must be at least one space separating it from integer-1. Failure to include this space will cause the ‘+’ to be simply treated as part of integer-1 and will treat the LINE clause as an absolute line specification rather than a relative one.
NEXT PAGE clause specifies that — regardless of whether or not the report group containing this clause could fit on the report page being currently generated, the report group will be forced to appear on a new page.
LINE clause:
COLUMN (see COLUMN) clause.
USAGE (see USAGE) other than COMPUTATIONAL-1 or COMPUTATIONAL-2, without editing symbols. The value of identifier-1 at the time the screen data item is presented must be 1 or greater. Note that a COMPUTATIONAL-1 or COMPUTATIONAL-2 identifier will be accepted by the compiler, but will produce unpredictable results at run-time.
LINE 5) or on a relative basis based upon the previously-displayed line (i.e. LINE PLUS 1).
PLUS, if desired; if ‘+’ is used, however, there must be at least one space separating it from integer-1. Failure to include this space will cause the ‘+’ to be simply treated as part of integer-1 and will treat the LINE clause as an absolute line specification rather than a relative one.
FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO), USING (see USING) or VALUE (see VALUE) clause but has no LINE clause, the “current screen line” will be assumed.
LOWLIGHT ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The LOWLIGHT clause controls the intensity of text (FOREGROUND-COLOR) by setting that intensity to its lowest of three possible settings.
HIGHLIGHT (see HIGHLIGHT), are intended to provide a three-level intensity scheme (LOWLIGHT … nothing (Normal) … HIGHLIGHT). In environments such as a Windows console where only two levels of intensity are supported, LOWLIGHT is the same as leaving this clause off altogether.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
NEXT GROUP IS { [ +|PLUS ] integer-2 }
~~~~ ~~~~~ { ~~~~ }
{ NEXT|{NEXT PAGE}|PAGE }
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
This clause defines any rules for where the next group to be presented on a report will begin, line-wise, with respect to the last line of the group in which this clause appears.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
NEXT,
NEXT PAGE and
PAGE are interchangeable.
LINE NUMBER clause in order to also contain a NEXT GROUP clause.
RD (see REPORT SECTION) in which the report group containing a NEXT GROUP clause does not contain a PAGE LIMITS clause, only the PLUS integer-1 option may be specified.
NEXT PAGE option cannot be used in a PAGE FOOTING.
NEXT GROUP option cannot be specified in either a REPORT HEADING or a PAGE HEADING.
NEXT GROUP will be in addition to any line spacing defined by the next-presented group’s LINE NUMBER clause.
NO-ECHO ~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The NO-ECHO clause will cause all data entered into the field to appear on the screen as asterisks.
NO-ECHO and SECURE (see SECURE) clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
USING (see USING) or TO (see TO) clause).
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ STEP integer-3 ]
~~~~
[ VARYING identifier-2 FROM { identifier-3 } BY { identifier-4 } ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { integer-4 } ~~ { integer-5 }
OCCURS integer-2 TIMES ~~~~~~
OCCURS [ integer-1 TO ] integer-2 TIMES
~~~~~~ ~~
[ DEPENDING ON identifier-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ ASCENDING|DESCENDING KEY IS identifier-5... ]...
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ INDEXED BY identifier-6 ]
~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
The OCCURS clause is used to create a data structure called a table, where entries in that structure repeat multiple times.
BY (INDEXED), IS, KEY, ON and TIMES are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
05 QUARTERLY-REVENUE OCCURS 4 TIMES PIC 9(7)V99.
This will allocate the following:
QUARTERLY-REVENUE(1) QUARTERLY-REVENUE(2) QUARTERLY-REVENUE(3) QUARTERLY-REVENUE(4)
Each occurrence is referenced using the subscript syntax (a numeric literal, arithmetic expression or numeric identifier enclosed within parenthesis) shown above.
OCCURS clause may be used at the group level too, in which case the entire group structure repeats, as follows:
05 GRP OCCURS 3 TIMES.
10 A PIC X(1).
10 B PIC X(1).
10 C PIC X(1).
This would allow references to any of the following:
GRP(1) includes A(1), B(1) and C(1) GRP(2) includes A(2), B(2) and C(2) GRP(3) includes A(3), B(3) and C(3)
or each A,B,C item could be referenced as follows:
A(1) character #1 of GRP(1) B(1) character #2 of GRP(1) C(1) character #3 of GRP(1) A(2) character #1 of GRP(2) B(2) character #2 of GRP(2) C(2) character #3 of GRP(2) A(3) character #1 of GRP(3) B(3) character #2 of GRP(3) C(3) character #3 of GRP(3)
DEPENDING ON clause can be added to an OCCURS to create a variable-length table. In such cases, the value of integer-1 specifies what the minimum number of entries in the table will be while integer-2 specifies the maximum. Such tables will be allocated out to the maximum size specified as integer-2. At execution time the value of identifier-1 will determine how many of the table elements are accessible.
SEARCH (see SEARCH), SEARCH ALL (see SEARCH ALL) and SORT (see SORT) statements for explanations of the
KEY and
INDEXED BY clauses.
OCCURS clause cannot be specified in a data description entry that has a level number of 01, 66, 77, or 88, although it is valid in data items described subordinate to an 01-level data item.
OCCURS used in the report section:
STEP clause defines an incrementation value that will be added to any absolute LINE (see LINE) or COLUMN (see COLUMN) number specifications that may be part of or subordinate to this data item’s definition.
VARYING clause defines an identifier that may be used as a subscript for the multiple occurrences of this or any subordinate data item should the SOURCE (see SOURCE) or SUM (see SUM) clause(s) on this or subordinate data items reference entries within the table. The identifier-2 data item is dynamically created as needed and cannot be referenced outside the scope of the report data item definition.
OCCURS capabilities of STEP and VARYING. Both assume the definition of the following table exists in working-storage:
First, the “Hard Way”:
10 COL 7 PIC $(7)9.99 SOURCE SALES(1). 10 COL 17 PIC $(7)9.99 SOURCE SALES(2). 10 COL 27 PIC $(7)9.99 SOURCE SALES(3). 10 COL 37 PIC $(7)9.99 SOURCE SALES(4).
And then using STEP and VARYING:
10 COL 7 OCCURS 4 TIMES STEP 10 VARYING QTR FROM 1 BY 1
PIC $(7)9.99 SOURCE SALES(QTR).
OVERLINE ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The OVERLINE clause will introduce a horizontal line at the top edge of a screen field.
LEFTLINE (see LEFTLINE), OVERLINE and UNDERLINE (see UNDERLINE) clauses may be used in any combination in a single field’s description.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
PICTURE IS picture-string ~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
The picture clause defines the class (numeric, alphabetic or alphanumeric), size and format of the data that may be contained by the data item being defined. Sometimes this role is assisted by the USAGE (see USAGE) clause, and in a few instances will be assumed entirely by that clause.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
PICTURE may be abbreviated as PIC. Most programmers prefer to use the latter.
CR, DB, ‘S’, ‘V’, ‘X’ and ‘Z’.
PIC 9999/99/99 — for example, the repetition can be specified using a parenthetic repeat count, as in PIC 9(4)/9(2)/9(2). Using repeat counts is optional and their use (or not) is entirely at the discretion of the programmer. Many programmers use repetition for small sequences (PIC XXX) and repeat counts for larger ones (PIC 9(9).
Defines storage reserved for a single alphabetic character (‘A’-‘Z’, ‘a’-‘z’).
Defines storage reserved for a single character in the computer’s
National Character set. Support for national character sets in GnuCOBOL is currently only partially implemented, and the compile- and run-time effect of using the ‘N’ picture symbol is the same as if X(2) had been coded, with the additional effect that such a field will qualify as a NATIONAL or NATIONAL-EDITED field on an INITIALIZE (see INITIALIZE) statement.
Defines storage reserved for a single alphanumeric character (any character).
Defines storage reserved for a single numeric digit character (‘0’-‘9’).
Typically, only one kind of each of those symbols is used in the same picture clause, but that isn’t a requirement. Data items that, of the three symbols above, use nothing but ‘A’ picture symbols are known as
Alphabetic Data Items while those that use ‘9’ picture symbols without any ‘A’ or ‘X’ symbols (or those that have a USAGE without a PICTURE) are known as
Numeric Data Items. All other data items are referred to as
Alphanumeric Data Items.
If you need to allocate space for a data item whose format is two letters followed by five digits followed by three letters, you could use the picture-string AA99999AAA, A(2)9(5)A(3) XXXXXXXXXX or X(10). There is absolutely no functional difference whatsoever between the four — none of them provide any functionality the others do not. The first two probably make for better documentation of the expected field contents, but they don’t provide any run-time enforcement capabilities.
As far as enforcement goes, however, both alphabetic and numeric picture strings do provide for both compile-time and run-time enforcement capabilities. In the case of compilation enforcement, the compiler can issue warning messages if you attempt to specify a non-numeric value for a numeric data item or if you attempt to MOVE (see MOVE) a non-numeric data item to one that is numeric. Similar capabilities exist for alphabetic data items. At run-time, you may use a special class test (see Class Conditions) to determine if the contents of a data item are entirely numeric or entirely alphabetic.
Defines an implied digit position that will be considered to be a zero when the data item is referenced at run-time. This symbol is used to allow data items that will contain very large values to be allocated using less storage by assuming a certain number of trailing zeros (one per ‘P’) to exist at the end of values.
The ‘P’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
The ‘P’ symbol may only be used at the beginning or end of a picture clause.
‘P’ is a repeatable symbol.
All computations and MOVE (see MOVE) operations involving such a data item will behave as if the zeros were actually there.
For example, let’s say you need to allocate a data item that contains however many millions of dollars of revenue your company has in gross revenues this year:
01 Gross-Revenue PIC 9(9).
In which case 9 characters of storage will be reserved. The values 000000000 through 999999999 will represent the gross-revenues. But, if only the millions are tracked (meaning the last six digits are always going to be 0), you could define the field as:
01 Gross-Revenue PIC 9(3)P(6).
Whenever Gross-Revenue is referenced in calculations, or whenever its value is moved to another data item, the value of Gross-Revenue will be treated as if it is nnn000000, where nnn is the actual value in storage.
If you wanted to store the value 128 million into that field, you would do so as if the ‘P’s were ‘9’s:
MOVE 128000000 TO Gross-Revenue
A DISPLAY (see DISPLAY) of a data item containing ‘P’ symbols is a little strange. The value displayed will be what is actually in storage, but the total size of the displayed value will be as if the ‘P’ symbols had been ‘9’s. Thus, after the above statement established a value for Gross-Revenue, a DISPLAY Gross-Revenue would produce output of ‘000000128’.
This symbol, if used, must be the very first symbol in the PICTURE value. A ‘S’ indicates that the data item is Signed, meaning that negative values are possible for this data item. Without an ‘S’, any negative values stored into this data item via a MOVE or arithmetic statement will have the negative sign stripped from it (in effect becoming the absolute value).
The ‘S’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
The ‘S’ symbol may only occur once in a picture string. See SIGN IS, for further discussion of how negative values may be stored in a numeric data item.
This symbol is used to define where an implied decimal-point (if any) is located in a numeric item. Just as there may only be a single decimal point in a number so may there be no more than one ‘V’ in a PICTURE. Implied decimal points occupy no space in storage — they just specify how values are used. For example, if the value 1234 is in storage in a field defined as PIC 999V9, that value would be treated as 123.4 in any statements that referenced it.
The ‘V’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
The ‘V’ symbol may only occur once in a picture string.
The ‘B’ editing symbol introduces a blank into the field value for each occurrence.
Multiple ‘B’ symbols may be coded.
The following example will format a ten digit number (presumably a telephone number) into a ‘### ### ####’ layout:
...
05 Phone-Number PIC 9(3)B9(3)B9(4).
...
MOVE 5185551212 TO Phone-Number
DISPLAY Phone-Number
This code will display ‘518 555 1212’.
The ‘0’ (zero) editing symbol introduces one “0” character into the field value for each occurrence in the picture string.
Multiple ‘0’ symbols may be coded.
Here’s an example:
...
05 Output-Item PIC 909090909.
...
MOVE 12345 TO Output-Item
DISPLAY Output-Item
The above will display ‘102030405’.
The ‘/’ editing symbol inserts one “/” character into the field value for each occurrence in the picture string.
Multiple ‘/’ symbols may be coded.
This editing symbol is most-frequently used to format dates, as follows:
...
05 Year-Month-Day PIC 9(4)/9(2)/9(2).
...
MOVE 20140207 TO Year-Month-Day
DISPLAY Year-Month-Day
This example displays ‘2014/02/07’.
The ‘.’ symbol inserts a decimal point into a numeric field value. When the contents of a numeric data item sending field are moved into a receiving data item whose picture clause contains the ‘.’ editing symbol, implied (‘V’) or actual decimal point in the sending data item or literal, respectively, will be aligned with the ‘.’ symbol in the receiving field. Digits are then transferred from the sending to the receiving field outward from the sending field’s ‘V’ or ‘.’, truncating sending digits if there aren’t enough positions in the receiving field. Any digit positions in the receiving field that don’t receive digits from the sending field, if any, will be set to 0.
The ‘.’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
An example will probably help:
...
05 Source-Field PIC 9(2)V9 VALUE 7.2.
05 Dest-Field PIC 9(5).9(2).
...
MOVE 1234567.89 TO Dest-Field
DISPLAY Dest-Field
MOVE 19 TO Dest-Field
DISPLAY Dest-Field
MOVE Source-Field TO Dest-Field
DISPLAY Dest-Field
The example will display three results — ‘34567.89’, ‘00019.00’ and ‘00007.20’.
Both data item definitions appear to have two decimal points in their picture clauses. They actually don’t, because the last character of every data item definition is always a period — the period that ends the definition.
The ‘,’ symbol serves as a thousands separator. Many times, you’ll see large numbers formatted with these symbols — for example, 123,456,789. This can be accomplished easily by adding thousands separator symbols to a picture string. Thousands separator symbols that aren’t needed will behave as if they were ‘9’s.
The ‘,’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Here’s an example:
...
05 My-Lottery-Winnings PIC 9(3),9(3),9(3).
...
MOVE 12345 TO My-Lottery-Winnings
DISPLAY My-Lottery-Winnings
The value ‘0000012,345’ (a very disappointing one for my retirement plans, but a good thousands separator demo) will be displayed. Notice how, since the first comma wasn’t needed due to the meagre amount I won, it behaved like another ‘9’.
If desired, you may reverse the roles of the ‘.’ and ‘,’ editing symbols by specifying DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA in the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph.
CR and DB) to signify the sign (positive or negative) of the numeric value that is moved into the field whose picture string contains one of these symbols, or the fact that the data item represents a currency (money) amount. Only one of the ‘+’, ‘-’, CR or DB symbols may be used in a picture clause. In this context, when any of these symbols are used in a picture-string, they must be at the end. The ‘+’, ‘-’ and/or currency symbols may also be used as floating editing symbols at the beginning of the picture-string — a subject that will be covered in the next numbered paragraph.
If the value of the numeric value moved into the field is positive (0 or greater), a ‘+’ character will be inserted. If the value is negative (less than 0), a ‘-’ character is inserted.
The ‘+’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
If the value of the numeric value moved into the field is positive (0 or greater), a space will be inserted. If the value is negative (less than 0), a ‘-’ character is inserted.
The ‘-’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
CRThis symbol is coded as the two characters ‘C’ and ‘R’. If the value of the numeric value moved into the field is positive (0 or greater), two spaces will be inserted. If the value is negative (less than 0), the characters CR (credit) are inserted.
The CR symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
DBThis symbol is coded as the two characters ‘D’ and ‘B’. If the value of the numeric value moved into the field is positive (0 or greater), two spaces will be inserted. If the value is negative (less than 0), the characters DB (debit) are inserted.
The DB symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Regardless of the value moved into the field, this symbol will insert the currency symbol into the data item’s value in the position where it occurs in the picture-string (see SPECIAL-NAMES).
The ‘$’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Of those currency symbols that correspond to character positions in which leading zeros reside, the right-most will have its ‘0’ value replaced by the currency symbol in-effect for the program (see SPECIAL-NAMES). Any remaining leading zero values occupying positions described by this symbol will be replaced by spaces.
The ‘$’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Any currency symbol coded to the right of a ‘.’ will be treated exactly like a ‘9’.
This symbol is referred to as a check protection symbol. All check-protection symbols that correspond to character positions in which leading zeros reside will have their ‘0’ values replaced by ‘*’.
The ‘*’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Any check-suppression symbol coded to the right of a ‘.’ will be treated exactly like a ‘9’.
Of those ‘+’ symbols that correspond to character positions in which leading zeros reside, the right-most will have its ‘0’ value replaced by a ‘+’ if the value in the data item is zero or greater or a ‘-’ otherwise. Any remaining leading zero values occupying positions described by this symbol will be replaced by spaces. You cannot use both ‘+’ and ‘-’ in the same picture-string.
The ‘+’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Any ‘+’ symbol coded to the right of a ‘.’ will be treated exactly like a ‘9’.
Of those ‘-’ symbols that correspond to character positions in which leading zeros reside, the right-most will have its ‘0’ value replaced by a space if the value in the data item is zero or greater or a ‘-’ otherwise. Any remaining leading zero values occupying positions described by this symbol will be replaced by spaces. You cannot use both ‘+’ and ‘-’ in the same picture-string.
The ‘-’ symbol is not allowed in conjunction with ‘N’.
Any ‘-’ symbol coded to the right of a ‘.’ will be treated exactly like a ‘9’.
All ‘Z’ symbols that correspond to character positions in which leading zeros reside will have their ‘0’ values replaced by spaces.
Any zero-suppression symbol coded to the right of a ‘.’ will be treated exactly like a ‘9’.
‘Z’ and ‘*’ should not be coded in the same picture-string
‘+’ and ‘-’ should not be coded in the same picture-string
When multiple floating symbols are coded, even if there is only one of them used they will all be considered floating and will all be able to assume each other’s properties. For example, if a data item has a PIC +$ZZZZ9.99 picture-string, and a value of 1 is moved to that field at run-time, the resulting value will be (the b symbol represents a space) bbbb+$1.00. This is not consistent with many other COBOL implementations, where the result would have been +$bbbb1.00.
Most other COBOL implementations reject the use of multiple occurrences of multiple floating editing symbols. For example, they would reject picture-strings such as +++$$$9.99, $$$ZZZ9.99 and so on. GnuCOBOL accepts these. Programmers creating GnuCOBOL programs should avoid such picture-strings if there is any likelihood that those programs may be used with other COBOL implementations.
PRESENT WHEN condition-name ~~~~~~~ ~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
This clause names an existing Condition Name (see Condition Names) that will serve as a switch controlling the presentation or suppression of a report group.
GENERATE statement (see GENERATE) causes a report group to be presented, the presentation of that group will be suppressed.
TRUE, the group will be presented.
PROMPT [ CHARACTER IS literal-1 | identifier-1 ] ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause defines the character that will be used as the fill-character for any input fields on the screen.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
CHARACTER specification be coded, or should the PROMPT clause be absent altogether, is an underscore (‘_’).
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
PROTECTED SIZE IS { identifier }
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { integer }
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
PROTECTED extended clause will effect the specified field to be limited in size, regardless of the picture size.2
ACCEPT or DISPLAY is finished, the cursor is placed immediately after the field defined by this clause, unless this would place the cursor outside of the current terminal window. In this case, the cursor is wrapped around to the beginning of the next line (scrolling the window if necessary).
SIZE phrase is not used, then the field length defaults to the size of the item being accepted or displayed. If the CONVERT phrase is used, however, then the size of the field depends on the data type of the item and the verb being used.
DISPLAY verb is executing, then the size is the same as if the CONVERT phrase were not specified except for numeric items. For numeric items, the size is the number of digits in the item, plus one if it is not an integer, plus one if it is signed. The remaining cases cover the size when an ACCEPT statement is used.
PICTURE clause.
CONVERT were not specified).
OUTPUT phrase changes the way in which the default field size is computed. See that heading above for details. Also note that the OUTPUT phrase affects only the way items are displayed on the screen; the internal format of accepted data is not affected.
CONVERT phrase in the Screen Section. Thus the size of a Screen Section field is always the size of its screen entry unless the SIZE phrase is specified.
REDEFINES identifier-1 ~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
The REDEFINES clause causes the data item in who’s definition the REDEFINES clause is specified (hereafter referred to as the redefines object) to occupy the same physical storage space as identifier-1 (hereafter referred to as the redefines subject).
REDEFINES:
REDEFINES of the subject.
OCCURS (see OCCURS) clause may be part of the definition of either the subject or object data items. Either or both, however, may be group items that contain data items with OCCURS clauses.
VALUE (see VALUE) clause may be defined on the object data item, and no data items subordinate to the object data item may have VALUE clauses, with the exception of level-88 condition names.
RENAMES identifier-1 [ THRU|THROUGH identifier-2 ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
The RENAMES clause regroups previously defined items by specifying alternative, possibly overlapping, groupings of elementary data items.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
RENAMES clause.
RENAMES clause.
REQUIRED ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause forces the user to enter data into the field it is specified on (or into all subordinate input-capable fields if REQUIRED is specified on a group item).
EMPTY-CHECK (see EMPTY-CHECK) and REQUIRED clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) will ignore the Enter key and any other cursor-moving keystrokes that would cause the cursor to move to another screen item unless data has been entered into the field. Function keys will still be allowed to terminate the ACCEPT.
REQUIRED.
REVERSE-VIDEO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The REVERSE-VIDEO attribute swaps the specified or implied FOREGROUND-COLOR (see FOREGROUND-COLOR) and BACKGROUND-COLOR (see BACKGROUND-COLOR) attributes for the field whose definition contains this clause (or all subordinate fields if used on a group item).
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
SECURE ~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause will cause all data entered into the field to appear on the screen as asterisks.
NO-ECHO (see NO-ECHO) and SECURE clauses are interchangeable, and may not be used together in the same data item description.
USING (see USING) or TO (see TO) clause).
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
SIGN IS LEADING|TRAILING [ SEPARATE CHARACTER ] ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
This clause, allowable only for USAGE DISPLAY numeric data items, specifies how an ‘S’ symbol will be interpreted in a data item’s picture clause.
CHARACTER and IS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SEPARATE CHARACTER option, the sign of the data item’s value will be encoded by transforming the last (see
TRAILING) or first (see
LEADING) digit as follows:
| First/Last Digit | Value For Positive | Value for Negative |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | p |
| 1 | 1 | q |
| 2 | 2 | r |
| 3 | 3 | s |
| 4 | 4 | t |
| 5 | 5 | u |
| 6 | 6 | v |
| 7 | 7 | w |
| 8 | 8 | x |
| 9 | 9 | y |
SEPARATE CHARACTER clause is used, then an actual ‘+’ or ‘-’ character will be inserted into the field’s value as the first (LEADING) or last (TRAILING) character. Note that having this character embedded within the data item’s storage does not prevent the data item from being used as a source field in arithmetic operations.
SEPARATE CHARACTER is specified, the ‘S’ symbol in the data item’s PICTURE must be counted when determining the data item’s size.
SOURCE IS literal-1 | identifier-1 [ ROUNDED ] ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
This clause logically attaches a report section data item to another data item defined elsewhere in the data division.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
PAGE-COUNTER,
LINE-COUNTER or a SUM (see SUM) counter.
PICTURE (see PICTURE) of the report data item must be such that it would be legal to MOVE (see MOVE) the specified literal or identifier to a data item with that PICTURE.
ROUNDED option comes into play should the number of digits to the right of an actual or assumed decimal point be different between the specified literal or identifier value (the “source value”) and the PICTURE specified for the field in whose definition the SOURCE clause appears (the “target field”). Without ROUNDED, excess digits in the source value will simply be truncated to fit the target field. With ROUNDED, the source value will be arithmetically rounded to fit the target field. See ROUNDED, for information on the NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO rounding rule, which is the one that will apply.
SUM OF { identifier-7 }... [ { RESET ON FINAL|identifier-8 } ]
~~~ { literal-2 } { ~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ UPON identifier-9 }
~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
The SUM clause establishes a summation counter whose value will be arithmetically calculated whenever the field is presented.
OF and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SUM clause may only appear in a CONTROL FOOTING report group.
SUM clause appears has been assigned its own identifier name, and that name is not FILLER, then that data item is referred to as a sum counter.
SUM clause appears or they must be defined in a report data item that exists at a lower level in this report’s control hierarchy. See Control Hierarchy, for additional information.
PICTURE of the report data item in who’s description this SUM clause appears in must be such that it would be legal to MOVE (see MOVE) the specified identifier-7 or literal-2 value to a data item with that PICTURE.
UPON option:
SUM clause appears.
UPON clause limits the SUM clause to adding the specified numeric literal or identifier value into the sum counter only when a GENERATE identifier-9 statement is executed.
UPON clause specified, the value of identifier-7 or literal-2 will be added into the sum counter whenever a GENERATE (see GENERATE) of any detail report group in the report is executed.
UPON clause is meaningless.
RESET option:
RESET option is coded, FINAL or identifier-8 (whichever is coded on the RESET) must be one of the report’s control breaks specified on the CONTROLS clause.
RESET option coded, the sum counter will be reset back to zero after each time the control footing containing the SUM clause is presented. This is the typical behaviour that would be expected.
SUM counter only when the control footing for a control break higher in the control hierarchy is presented, specify that higher control break on the RESET option.
SYNCRONIZED|SYNCHRONISED [ LEFT|RIGHT ] ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
The LEFT and RIGHT (SYNCRONIZED) clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE
This optional clause optimizes the storage of binary numeric items to store them in such a manner as to make it as fast as possible for the CPU to fetch them.
SYNCRONIZED and SYNCHRONISED are interchangeable, and may be abbreviated as SYNC.
SYNCRONIZED clause is coded on anything but a numeric data item with a USAGE (see USAGE) that specifies storage of data in a binary form, the SYNCRONIZED clause will be ignored.
TO identifier-5 ~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause logically attaches a screen section data item to another data item defined elsewhere in the data division.
TO clause is used to define a data-entry field with no initial value; when a value is entered, it will be saved to the specified identifier.
FROM (see FROM), TO, USING (see USING) and VALUE (see VALUE) clauses are mutually-exclusive in any screen section data item’s definition.
[ TYPE IS { RH|{REPORT HEADING} } ]
~~~~ { ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ PH|{PAGE HEADING} }
{ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ CH|{CONTROL HEADING} FINAL|identifier-2 }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ DE|DETAIL }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~ }
{ CF|{CONTROL FOOTING} FINAL|identifier-2 }
{ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ PF|{PAGE FOOTING} }
{ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ RF|{REPORT FOOTING} }
~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
REPORT
This clause defines the type of report group that is being defined for a report.
RD defined with a TYPE of REPORT HEADING, PAGE HEADING, PAGE FOOTING and REPORT FOOTING.
CONTROL HEADING or a CONTROL FOOTING or both specified for each entry specified on the CONTROLS ARE clause of the RD.
UNDERLINE ~~~~~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
The UNDERLINE clause will introduce a horizontal line at the bottom edge of a screen field.
LEFTLINE (see LEFTLINE), OVERLINE (see OVERLINE) and UNDERLINE clauses may be used in any combination in a single field’s description.
See Color Palette and Video Attributes, for more information on screen colors and video attributes.
USAGE IS data-item-usage ~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT
The USAGE clause defines the format that will be used to store the value of a data item.
IS is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
BINARY
~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Defined by the quantity of ‘9’s and the presence or absence of an ‘S’ in the PICTURE | |
| Storage Format: | Compatible Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | If PICTURE contains ‘S’ | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
BINARY-C-LONG [ SIGNED ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-DOUBLE SIGNED |
BINARY-C-LONG UNSIGNED
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Typically 0 – 4,294,967,295 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-CHAR [ SIGNED ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -128 – 127 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-CHAR UNSIGNED
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 – 255 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-DOUBLE [ SIGNED ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 – 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-DOUBLE UNSIGNED
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 – 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-INT
~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-LONG SIGNED |
BINARY-LONG [ SIGNED ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -2,147,483,648 – 2,147,483,647 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-LONG UNSIGNED
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 – 4,294,967,295 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-LONG-LONG
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-DOUBLE SIGNED |
BINARY-SHORT [ SIGNED ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -32,768 – 32,767 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
BINARY-SHORT UNSIGNED
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 – 65,535 | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
COMPUTATIONAL
~~~~
Same as BINARY |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-1
~~~~ ~~
Same as FLOAT-SHORT |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-2
~~~~ ~~
Same as FLOAT-LONG |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-3
~~~~ ~~
Same as PACKED-DECIMAL |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-4
~~~~ ~~
Same as BINARY |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-5
~~~~ ~~
| Range of Values: | Depends on number of ‘9’s in the PICTURE and the binary-size setting of the configuration file used to compile the program | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | If PICTURE contains ‘S’ | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-6
~~~~ ~~
| Range of Values: | Defined by the quantity of ‘9’s and the presence or absence of an ‘S’ in the PICTURE | |
| Storage Format: | Unsigned Packed Decimal | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
COMP[UTATIONAL]-X
~~~~ ~~
| Range of Values: | If used with PIC X, allocates one byte of storage per ‘X’; range of values is 0 to max storable in that many bytes. If used with PIC 9, range of values depends on number of ‘9’s in PICTURE | |
| Storage Format: | Native unsigned (X) or signed (9) Binary | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | If PICTURE 9 and contains ‘S’ | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
DISPLAY
~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Depends on PICTURE — One character per X, A, 9, period, $, Z, 0, *, S (if SEPARATE CHARACTER specified), +, - or B symbol in PICTURE; Add 2 more bytes if the DB or CR editing symbol is used | |
| Storage Format: | Characters | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | If PICTURE contains ‘S’ | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
FLOAT-DECIMAL-16
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -9.999999999999999 * 10383 – 9.999999999999999 * 10384 | |
| Storage Format: | Native IEEE 754 Decimal64 Floating-point | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
FLOAT-DECIMAL-34
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | -9.99999... * 106143 – 9.99999... * 106144 | |
| Storage Format: | Native IEEE 754 Decimal128 Floating-point | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
FLOAT-LONG
~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Approximately -1.797693134862316 * 10308 – 1.797693134862316 * 10308 | |
| Storage Format: | Native IEEE 754 Binary64 Floating-point | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
FLOAT-SHORT
~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Approximately -3.4028235 * 1038 – 3.4028235 * 1038 | |
| Storage Format: | Native IEEE 754 Binary32 | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | Yes | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
INDEX
~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 to maximum address possible (32 or 64 bits) | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
NATIONAL
~~~~~~~~
USAGE NATIONAL, while syntactically recognized, is not supported by GnuCOBOL |
PACKED-DECIMAL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | Defined by the quantity of ‘9’s and the presence or absence of an ‘S’ in the PICTURE | |
| Storage Format: | Signed Packed Decimal | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | If PICTURE contains ‘S’ | |
PICTURE Used?: | Yes |
POINTER
~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 to maximum address possible (32 or 64 bits) | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
PROCEDURE-POINTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as PROGRAM-POINTER |
PROGRAM-POINTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Range of Values: | 0 to maximum address possible (32 or 64 bits) | |
| Storage Format: | Native Binary Integer | |
| Negative Values Allowed?: | No | |
PICTURE Used?: | No |
SIGNED-INT
~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-LONG SIGNED |
SIGNED-LONG
~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-DOUBLE SIGNED |
SIGNED-SHORT
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-SHORT SIGNED |
UNSIGNED-INT
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-LONG UNSIGNED |
UNSIGNED-LONG
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-DOUBLE UNSIGNED |
UNSIGNED-SHORT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same as BINARY-SHORT UNSIGNED |
Big-endian data allocation calls for the bytes that comprise a binary item to be allocated such that the least-significant byte is the right-most byte. For example, a four-byte binary item having a value of decimal 20 would be big-endian allocated as 00000014 (shown in hexadecimal notation).
Little-endian data allocation calls for the bytes that comprise a binary item to be allocated such that the least-significant byte is the left-most byte. For example, a four-byte binary item having a value of decimal 20 would be little-endian allocated as 14000000 (shown in hexadecimal notation).
All CPUs are capable of understanding big-endian format, which makes it the most compatible form of binary storage across computer systems.
Some CPUs — such as the Intel/AMD i386/x64 architecture processors used in most Windows PCs — prefer to process binary data stored in a little-endian format. Since that format is more efficient on those systems, it is referred to as the native binary format.
On a system supporting only one format of binary storage (generally, that would be big-endian), the terms most efficient and native format are synonymous.
UNSIGNED attribute explicitly coded, or DISPLAY, PACKED-DECIMAL, COMP-5, COMP-X items that do not have an ‘S’ symbol in their picture clause cannot preserve negative values that may be stored into them. Storing a negative value into such a field will actually result in the sign being stripped, essentially saving the absolute value in the data item.
USAGE PACKED-DECIMAL, USAGE COMP-3 or USAGE COMP-6) data is stored as a series of bytes such that each byte contains two 4-bit fields, referred to as nibbles (since they comprise half a “byte”, they’re just “nibbles” — don’t groan, I don’t just make this stuff up!). Each nibble represents a ‘9’ in the PICTURE and each holds a single decimal digit encoded as its binary value (0 = 0000, 1 = 0001, … , 9 = 1001).
The last byte of a PACKED-DECIMAL or COMP-3 data item will always have its left nibble corresponding to the last ‘9’ in the PICTURE and its right nibble reserved as a sign indicator. This sign indicator is always present regardless of whether or not the PICTURE included an ‘S’ symbol.
The first byte of the data item will contain an unused left nibble if the PICTURE had an even number of ‘9’ symbols in it.
The sign indicator will have a value of a hexadecimal A through F. Traditional packed decimal encoding rules call for hexadecimal values of F, A, C or E (“FACE”) in the sign nibble to indicate a positive value and B or D to represent a negative value (hexadecimal digits 0-9 are undefined). Testing with a Windows MinGW/GnuCOBOL implementation shows that — in fact — hex digit D represents a negative number and any other hexadecimal digit denotes a positive number. Therefore, a PIC S9(3) COMP-3 packed-decimal field with a value of -15 would be stored internally as a hexadecimal 015D in GnuCOBOL.
If you attempt to store a negative number into a packed decimal field that has no ‘S’ in its PICTURE, the absolute value of the negative number will actually be stored.
USAGE COMP-6 does not allow for negative values, therefore no sign nibble will be allocated. A USAGE COMP-6 data item containing an odd number of ‘9’ symbols in its PICTURE will leave its leftmost nibble unused.
USAGE specifications FLOAT-DECIMAL-16 and FLOAT-DECIMAL-34 will encode data using IEEE 754 Decimal64 and Decimal128 format, respectively. The former allows for up to 16 digits of exact precision while the latter offers 34. The phrase “exact precision” is used because the traditional binary renderings of decimal real numbers in a floating-point format (FLOAT-LONG and FLOAT-SHORT, for example) only yield an approximation of the actual value because many decimal fractions cannot be precisely rendered in binary. The Decimal64 and Decimal128 renderings, however, render decimal real numbers in encoded decimal form in much the same way that PACKED-DECIMAL renders a decimal integer in digit-by-digit decimal form. The exact manner in which this rendering is performed is complex (Wikipedia has an excellent article on the subject — just search for Decimal64).
FLOAT-DECIMAL-16 and FLOAT-DECIMAL-34 data items using either Big-Endian or Little-Endian form, whichever is native to the system.
USAGE specifications FLOAT-LONG and FLOAT-SHORT use the IEEE 754 Binary64 and Binary32 formats, respectively. These are binary encodings of real decimal numbers, and as such cannot represent every possible value between the minimum and maximum values in the range for those usages. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the Binary64 and Binary32 encoding schemes — just search on Binary32 or Binary64.
GnuCOBOL stores FLOAT-LONG and FLOAT-SHORT data items using either Big-Endian or Little-Endian form, whichever is native to the system.
USAGE clause specified at the group item level will apply that USAGE to all subordinate data items, except those that themselves have a USAGE clause.
USAGE that is allowed in the report section is USAGE DISPLAY.
USING identifier-1 ~~~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
SCREEN
This clause logically attaches a screen section data item to another data item defined elsewhere in the data division.
ACCEPT.
FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO), USING and VALUE (see VALUE) clauses are mutually-exclusive in any screen section data item’s definition.
{ VALUE IS } {literal-1 [ THRU|THROUGH literal-2 ]}...
{ ~~~~~ } ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
{ VALUES ARE }
~~~~~~
VALUE IS [ ALL ] literal-1 ~~~~~ ~~~
This syntax is valid in the following sections:
FILE, WORKING-STORAGE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LINKAGE, REPORT, SCREEN
The VALUE clause is used to define condition names or to assign values (at compilation time) to data items.
ARE and IS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO) or USING (see USING) clause.
VALUE clause in the definition of a condition name:
VALUE IS and VALUES ARE are interchangeable.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
VALUE is used to create condition names.
VALUE clause in the definition of any other data item:
VALUE specifies an initial compilation-time value that will be assigned to the storage occupied by the data item in the program object code generated by the compiler.
VALUE clause is ignored on EXTERNAL (see EXTERNAL) data items or on any data items defines as subordinate to an EXTERNAL data item.
VALUE clause may not be used anywhere in the description of an 01 item (or any of its subordinate items) serving as an FD or SD record description.
ALL clause is used, it may only be used with an alphanumeric literal value; the value will be repeated as needed to completely fill the data item. Here are some examples with and without ALL (the symbol b denotes a space):
PIC X(5) VALUE ‘A’ *> Abbbb PIC X(5) VALUE ALL ‘A’ *> AAAAA PIC 9(3) VALUE 1 *> 001 PIC 9(3) VALUE ALL ‘1’ *> 111
FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO) or USING (see USING) clause in the same data item’s definition will be ignored.
ALL option is specified, the ALL option will be ignored.
INITIALIZE (see INITIALIZE) to initialize all data item occurrences in a table (at run-time) to their data-type-specific default values (numerics: 0, alphabetic and alphanumerics: spaces).
VALUE clause on the group item that serves as a parent to the table, as follows:
05 SHIRT-SIZES VALUE "S 14M 15L 16XL17".
10 SHIRT-SIZE-TBL OCCURS 4 TIMES.
15 SST-SIZE PIC X(2).
15 SST-NECK PIC 9(2).
REDEFINES (see REDEFINES) clause:
05 SHIRT-SIZE-VALUES.
10 PIC X(4) VALUE "S 14".
10 PIC X(4) VALUE "M 15".
10 PIC X(4) VALUE "L 16".
10 PIC X(4) VALUE XL17.
05 SHIRT-SIZES REDEFINES SHIRT-SIZE-VALUES.
10 SHIRT-SIZE-TBL OCCURS 4 TIMES.
15 SST-SIZE PIC X(2).
15 SST-NECK PIC 9(2).
Admittedly, this table is much more verbose than the one shown with a group VALUE. What is good about this initialization technique, however, is that you can have as many FILLER and VALUE items as you need for a larger table, and those values can be as long as necessary!
VALUE and OCCURS (see OCCURS) on the same data item; additionally, they don’t allow a VALUE clause on a data item subordinate to an OCCURS. GnuCOBOL, however, has neither of these restrictions!
Observe the following example, which illustrates a fourth manner in which tables may be initialized in GnuCOBOL:
05 X OCCURS 6 TIMES.
10 A PIC X(1) VALUE '?'.
10 B PIC X(1) VALUE '%'.
10 N PIC 9(2) VALUE 10.
In this example, all six ‘A’ items will be initialized to ‘?’, all six ‘B’ items will be initialized to ‘%’ and all six ‘N’ items will be initialized to 10. It’s not clear exactly how many times this sort of initialization will be useful, but it’s there if you need it.
FROM (see FROM), TO (see TO), USING (see USING) and VALUE clauses are mutually-exclusive in any screen section data item’s definition.
PROCEDURE DIVISION [ { USING Subprogram-Argument... } ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~~ }
{ CHAINING Main-Program-Argument...}
~~~~~~~~
[ RETURNING identifier-1 ] .
[ DECLARATIVES. ] ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ Event-Handler-Routine... . ]
[ END DECLARATIVES. ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
General-Program-Logic
[ Nested-Subprogram... ]
[ END PROGRAM|FUNCTION name-1 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
The PROCEDURE DIVISION of any GnuCOBOL program marks the point where all executable code is written.
[ BY { REFERENCE [ OPTIONAL ] } ] identifier-1
{ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ VALUE [ [ UNSIGNED ] SIZE IS { AUTO } ] }
~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~ }
{ DEFAULT }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ integer-1 }
The USING clause defines the arguments that will be passed to a GnuCOBOL program which is serving as a subprogram.
BY and IS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words have no effect upon the program.
USING clause should only be used on the procedure division header of subprograms (subroutines or user-defined functions).
USING clause as the maximum number of arguments the subprogram will ever be passed.
USING clause specified on its procedure division header.
USING clause must correspond to the order in which those arguments will be passed to the subprogram by the calling program.
USING clause must be defined in the linkage section of the subprogram. No storage is actually allocated for those identifiers in the subprogram as the actual storage for them will exist in the calling program.
USAGE BINARY-LONG (see USAGE)) which is the actual argument being passed to the subprogram.
In the case of the former, the USING clause on the procedure division header should describe the argument via the
BY REFERENCE clause — in the latter case, a
BY VALUE specification should be coded. This allows the code generated by the compiler to properly reference the subprogram arguments at run-time.
BY REFERENCE is the assumed default for the first USING argument should no BY clause be specified for it. Subsequent arguments will assume the BY specification of the argument prior to them should they lack a BY clause of their own.
USING clause will “be visible” to the calling program only if BY REFERENCE was explicitly specified or implicitly assumed for the argument on the subprogram’s procedure division header and the argument was passed to the subprogram BY REFERENCE by the calling program. See Subprogram Arguments, for additional information on the mechanics of how arguments are passed to subprograms.
SIZE clause allows you to specify the number of bytes a BY VALUE argument will occupy, with SIZE DEFAULT specifying 4 bytes (this is the default if no SIZE clause is used), SIZE AUTO specifying the size of the argument in the calling program and SIZE integer-1 specifying a specific byte count.
UNSIGNED keyword, legal only if SIZE AUTO or SIZE integer-1 are coded, will add the unsigned attribute to the argument’s specification in the C-language function header code generated for the subprogram. While not of any benefit when the calling program is a GnuCOBOL program, this can improve compatibility with a C-language calling program.
OPTIONAL keyword, legal only on BY REFERENCE arguments, allows calling programs to code
OMITTED for that corresponding argument when they call this subprogram. See CALL. for additional information on this feature.
[ BY REFERENCE ] [ OPTIONAL ] identifier-1
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
The CHAINING term provides one mechanism a programmer may use to retrieve command-line arguments passed to a program at execution time.
PROCEDURE DIVISION CHAINING may only be coded in a main program (that is, the first program executed when a compiled GnuCOBOL compilation unit is executed). It cannot be used in any form of subprogram.
CHAINING clause defines arguments that will be passed to a main program from the operating system. The argument identifiers specified on the CHAINING clause will be populated by character strings comprised of the parameters specified to the program on the command line that executed it, as follows:
/usr/local/myprog THIS IS A TEST, there will be five tokens identified by the operating system — ‘/usr/local/myprog’, ‘THIS’, ‘IS’, ‘A’ and ‘TEST’.
C:\Pgms\myprog.exe ‘THIS IS A’ TEST — ‘C:\Pgms\myprog.exe’, ‘THIS IS A’ and ‘TEST’. When quote characters are used to create multi-word tokens, the quote characters themselves are stripped from the token’s value.
CHAINING arguments when the program begins execution, with the 2nd token going to the 1st argument, the 3rd token going to the 2nd argument and so forth.
INITIALIZE identifier-1 (see INITIALIZE) statement were executed.
CHAINING clause should be defined as PIC X, PIC A, group items (which are treated implicitly as PIC X) or as PIC 9 USAGE DISPLAY. The use of USAGE BINARY (or the like) data items as CHAINING arguments is not recommended as all command-line tokens will be retained in their original character form as they are moved into the argument data items.
JUSTIFIED RIGHT clause on such an argument identifier will be ignored.
PIC 9 USAGE DISPLAY, in which case unmodified bytes will be filled with ‘0’ characters from the systems native character set.
This behaviour when the argument is defined as PIC 9 may be unacceptable, as an argument defined as PIC 9(3) but passed in a value of ‘1’ from the command line will receive a value of ‘100’, not ‘001’. Consider defining “numeric” command line arguments as PIC X and then using the NUMVAL intrinsic function (see NUMVAL) function to determine the proper numeric value.
RETURNING identifier-1 ~~~~~~~~~
The RETURNING clause on the PROCEDURE DIVISION header documents that the subprogram in which the clause appears will be returning a numeric value back to the program that called it.
RETURNING clause is optional within a subroutine, as not all subroutines return a value to their caller.
RETURNING clause is mandatory within a user-defined function, as all such must return a numeric result.
USAGE BINARY-LONG data item.
RETURNING - they do so simply by MOVEing a value to the RETURN-CODE special register.
BY REFERENCE on its PROCEDURE DIVISION header. Whether the calling program can actually “see” any modifications depends upon how the calling program passed the argument to the subprogram. See CALL, for more information.
GLOBAL (see GLOBAL) attribute specified in its description in the calling program is automatically visible to and updatable by a subprogram nested with the calling program. See Independent vs Contained vs Nested Subprograms, for more information on subprogram nesting.
EXTERNAL (see EXTERNAL) attribute in a subprogram and the calling program (same name in both programs) is automatically visible to and updatable by both programs, even if those programs are compiled separately from one another.
The procedure division is the only one of the COBOL divisions that allows you to create your own sections and paragraphs. These are collectively referred to as Procedures, and the names you create for those sections and paragraphs are called Procedure Names.
Procedure names are optional in the procedure division and — when used — are named entirely according to the needs and whims of the programmer.
Procedure names may be up to thirty one (31) characters long and may consist of letters, numbers, dashes and underscores. A procedure name may neither begin nor end with a dash (‘-’) or underscore (‘_’) character. This means that Main, 0100-Read-Transaction and 17 are all perfectly valid procedure names.
There are three circumstances under which the use of certain GnuCOBOL statements or options will require the specification of procedures. These situations are:
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) are specified.
ENTRY statement (see ENTRY) is being used.
ALTER procedure-name
GO TO procedure-name
MERGE … OUTPUT PROCEDURE procedure-name
PERFORM procedure-name
SORT … INPUT PROCEDURE procedure-name and/or SORT … INPUT PROCEDURE procedure-name
section-name-1 SECTION.
USE { [ GLOBAL ] AFTER STANDARD { EXCEPTION } PROCEDURE ON { INPUT } }
~~~ { ~~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~ } { ~~~~~ } }
{ { ERROR } { OUTPUT } }
{ ~~~~~ { ~~~~~~ } }
{ { I-O } }
{ FOR DEBUGGING ON { procedure-name-1 } { ~~~ } }
{ ~~~~~~~~~ { ALL PROCEDURES } { EXTEND } }
{ { ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ } { ~~~~~~ } }
{ { REFERENCES OF identifier-1 } { file-name-1 } }
{ }
{ [ GLOBAL ] BEFORE REPORTING identifier-2 }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ }
{ AFTER EC|{EXCEPTION CONDITION} }
~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
The
AFTER EXCEPTION CONDITION and AFTER EC clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The DECLARATIVES area of the procedure division allows the programmer to define a series of “trap” procedures (referred to as declarative procedures) capable of intercepting certain events that may occur at program execution time. The syntax diagram above shows the format of a single such procedure.
AFTER, FOR, ON, PROCEDURE and STANDARD are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
EC and EXCEPTION CONDITION are interchangeable.
USE BEFORE REPORTING clause:
SUM (see SUM) or SOURCE (see SOURCE) clauses in the report group.
SUPPRESS (see SUPPRESS) statement to squelch the presentation of the specified report group altogether. Note that you will be suppressing this one specific instance of that group’s presentation and not all of them.
USE FOR DEBUGGING clause:
ALL PROCEDURES).
USE FOR DEBUGGING declarative procedure will be ignored at compilation time unless WITH DEBUGGING MODE is specified in the SOURCE-COMPUTER (see SOURCE-COMPUTER) paragraph. Neither the compiler’s
-fdebugging-line switch nor
-debug switch will activate this feature.
USE FOR DEBUGGING declarative procedures will be ignored at execution time unless the
COB_SET_DEBUG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) has been set to a value of ‘Y’, ‘y’ or ‘1’.
USE FOR DEBUGGING declarative procedure is to display the
DEBUG-ITEM special register, which will be implicitly and automatically created in your program for you if WITH DEBUGGING MODE is active.
The structure of DEBUG-ITEM will be as follows:
01 DEBUG-ITEM.
05 DEBUG-LINE PIC X(6).
05 FILLER PIC X(1) VALUE SPACE.
05 DEBUG-NAME PIC X(31).
05 FILLER PIC X(1) VALUE SPACE.
05 DEBUG-SUB-1 PIC S9(4) SIGN LEADING SEPARATE.
05 FILLER PIC X(1) VALUE SPACE.
05 DEBUG-SUB-2 PIC S9(4) SIGN LEADING SEPARATE.
05 FILLER PIC X(1) VALUE SPACE.
05 DEBUG-SUB-3 PIC S9(4) SIGN LEADING SEPARATE.
05 FILLER PIC X(1) VALUE SPACE.
05 DEBUG-CONTENTS PIC X(31).
where…
DEBUG-LINE… is the program line number of the statement that triggered the declaratives procedure.
DEBUG-NAME… is the procedure name or identifier name that triggered the declaratives procedure.
DEBUG-SUB-1… is the first subscript value (if any) for the reference of the identifier that triggered the declaratives procedure.
DEBUG-SUB-2… is the second subscript value (if any) for the reference of the identifier that triggered the declaratives procedure.
DEBUG-SUB-3… is the third subscript value (if any) for the reference of the identifier that triggered the declaratives procedure.
DEBUG-CONTENTS… is a (brief) statement of the manner in which the procedure that triggered the declaratives procedure was executed or the first 31 characters of the value of the identifier whose reference triggered the declaratives procedure (the value after the statement was executed).
USE AFTER STANDARD ERROR PROCEDURE clause defines a declarative procedure invoked any time a failure is encountered with the specified I/O type (or against the specified file(s)).
GLOBAL (see GLOBAL) option, if used, allows a declarative procedure to be used across the program containing the USE statement and any subprograms nested within that program.
[ AT END imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~
[ NOT AT END imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~
AT END clauses may be specified on READ (see READ), RETURN (see RETURN), SEARCH (see SEARCH) and SEARCH ALL (see SEARCH ALL) statements.
READ (see READ) and RETURN (see RETURN) statements:
AT END clause will — if present — cause imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement) to be executed if the statement fails due to a file status of 10 (end-of-file). See File Status Codes, for a list of possible File Status codes.
An AT END clause will not detect other non-zero file-status values.
Use a DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) routine or an explicitly-declared file status field tested after the READ or RETURN to detect error conditions other than end-of-file.
NOT AT END clause will cause imperative-statement-2 to be executed if the READ or RETURN attempt is successful.
SEARCH (see SEARCH) and SEARCH ALL (see SEARCH ALL) statements:
AT END clause detects and handles the case where either form of table search has failed to locate an entry that satisfies the search conditions being used.
NOT AT END clause is not allowed on either form of table search.
Three GnuCOBOL statements — ADD (see ADD CORRESPONDING), MOVE (see MOVE CORRESPONDING) and SUBTRACT (see SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING) support the use of a CORRESPONDING option:
ADD CORRESPONDING group-item-1 TO group-item-2 MOVE CORRESPONDING group-item-1 TO group-item-2 SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING group-item-1 FROM group-item-2
This option allows one or more data items within one group item (group-item-1 — the first named on the statement) to be paired with correspondingly-named (hence the name) in a second group item (group-item-2 — the second named on the statement). The contents of group-item-1 will remain unaffected by the statement while one or more data items within group-item-2 will be changed.
In order for data-item-1, defined subordinate to group item group-item-1 to be a corresponding match to data-item-2 which is subordinate to group-item-2, each of the following must be true:
FILLER.
FILLER) names.
MOVE verb…
ADD or SUBTRACT verbs, both data-item-1 and data-item-2 must be numeric, elementary, unedited items.
REDEFINES (see REDEFINES) or RENAMES (see RENAMES) of another data item.
OCCURS (see OCCURS) clause, although either may contain subordinate data items that do have an OCCURS clause (assuming rule 3a applies)
Observe the definitions of data items ‘Q’ and ‘Y’…
01 Q. 01 Y.
03 X. 02 A PIC X(1).
05 A PIC 9(1). 02 G1.
05 G1. 03 G2.
10 G2. 04 B PIC X(1).
15 B PIC X(1). 02 C PIC X(1).
05 C. 02 G3.
10 FILLER PIC X(1). 03 G5.
05 G3. 04 D PIC X(1).
10 G4. 03 G6 PIC X(1).
15 D PIC X(1). 02 E PIC 9(1).
05 E PIC X(1). 02 F PIC X(1).
05 F REDEFINES V1 02 G PIC X(4).
PIC X(1). 02 H OCCURS 4 TIMES
05 G. PIC X(1).
10 G6 OCCURS 4 TIMES 66 I RENAMES E.
PIC X(1). 02 J.
05 H PIC X(4). 03 K.
05 I PIC 9(1). 04 L.
05 J. 05 M.
10 K.
15 M PIC X(1).
The following are the valid CORRESPONDING matches, assuming the statement MOVE CORRESPONDING X TO Y is being executed (there are no valid corresponding matches for ADD CORRESPONDING or SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING because every potential match up violates rule #4):
The following are the CORRESPONDING match ups that passed rule #1 (but failed on another rule), and the reasons why they failed.
| Data Item | Failure Reason |
|---|---|
D | Fails due to rule #2b |
E | Fails due to rule #3b |
F | Fails due to rule #5 |
G1 | Fails due to rule #3a |
G2 | Fails due to rule #3a |
G3 | Fails due to rule #3a |
G4 | Fails due to rule #1 |
G5 | Fails due to rule #1 |
G6 | Fails due to rule #6 |
H | Fails due to rule #6 |
I | Fails due to rule #5 |
J | Fails due to rule #3a |
K | Fails due to rule #3a |
L | Fails due to rule #1 |
M | Fails due to rule #2a |
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-1 ] ~~~~~~~ [ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-2 ] ~~~ ~~~~~~~
INVALID KEY clauses may be specified on DELETE (see DELETE), READ (see Random READ), REWRITE (see REWRITE), START (see START) and WRITE (see WRITE) statements.
Specification of an INVALID KEY clause will allow your program to trap an I/O failure condition (with an I/O error code in the file’s FILE-STATUS (see SELECT) field) that has occurred due to a record-not-found condition and handle it gracefully by executing imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement).
An optional
NOT INVALID KEY clause will cause imperative-statement-2 to be executed if the statement’s execution was successful.
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
EXCEPTION clauses may be specified on ACCEPT (see ACCEPT), CALL (see CALL) and DISPLAY (see DISPLAY) statements.
Specification of an exception clause will allow your program to trap a failure condition that has occurred and handle it gracefully by executing imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement). If such a condition occurs at runtime without having one of these clauses specified, an error message will be generated (by the GnuCOBOL runtime library) to the SYSERR device (pipe 2). The program may also be terminated, depending upon the type and severity of the error.
An optional
NOT ON EXCEPTION clause will cause imperative-statement-2 to be executed if the statement’s execution was successful.
[ ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~
OVERFLOW clauses may be specified on CALL (see CALL), STRING (see STRING) and UNSTRING (see UNSTRING) statements.
An ON OVERFLOW clause will allow your program to trap a failure condition that has occurred and handle it gracefully by executing imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement). If such a condition occurs at runtime without having one of these clauses specified, an error message will be generated (by the GnuCOBOL runtime library) to the SYSERR device (pipe 2). The program may also be terminated, depending upon the type and severity of the error.
An optional
NOT ON OVERFLOW clause will cause imperative-statement-2 to be executed if the statement’s execution was successful.
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
SIZE ERROR clauses may be included on ADD (see ADD), COMPUTE (see COMPUTE), DIVIDE (see DIVIDE), MULTIPLY (see MULTIPLY) and SUBTRACT (see SUBTRACT) statements.
Including an ON SIZE ERROR clause on an arithmetic statement will allow your program to trap a failure of an arithmetic statement (either generating a result too large for the receiving field, or attempting to divide by zero) and handle it gracefully by executing imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement). Field size overflow conditions occur silently, usually without any runtime messages being generated, even though such events rarely lend themselves to generating correct results. Division by zero errors, when no ON SIZE ERROR clause exists, will produce an error message (by the GnuCOBOL runtime library) to the SYSERR device (pipe 2) and will also abort the program.
An optional
NOT ON SIZE ERROR clause will cause imperative-statement-2 to be executed if the arithmetic statement’s execution was successful.
ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
GnuCOBOL provides for control over the final rounding process applied to the receiving fields on all arithmetic verbs. Each of the arithmetic statements (ADD (see ADD), COMPUTE (see COMPUTE), DIVIDE (see DIVIDE), MULTIPLY (see MULTIPLY) and SUBTRACT (see SUBTRACT)) statements allow an optional ROUNDED clause to be applied to each receiving data item.
The following rules apply to the rounding behaviour induced by this clause.
ROUNDED clause is a non-integer value.
ROUNDED clause is the same as specifying ROUNDED MODE IS TRUNCATION.
ROUNDED clause without a MODE specification is the same as specifying ROUNDED MODE IS NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO.
The behaviour of the eight different rounding modes is defined in the following table. Note that a ‘…’ indicates the last digit repeats. The examples assume an integer receiving field.
AWAY-FROM-ZERORounding is to the nearest value of larger magnitude.
| -3.510 ⇒ -4 | +3.510 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -4 | +3.500 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -4 | +3.499… ⇒ +4 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -3 | +2.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -3 | +2.499… ⇒ +3 |
NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERORounding is to the nearest value (larger or smaller). If two values are equally near, the value with the larger absolute value is selected.
| -3.510 ⇒ -4 | +3.510 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -4 | +3.500 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -3 | +3.499… ⇒ +3 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -3 | +2.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -2 | +2.499… ⇒ +2 |
NEAREST-EVENRounding is to the nearest value (larger or smaller). If two values are equally near, the value whose rightmost digit is even is selected. This mode is sometimes called “Banker’s rounding”.
| -3.510 ⇒ -4 | +3.510 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -4 | +3.500 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -3 | +3.499… ⇒ +3 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -2 | +2.500 ⇒ +2 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -2 | +2.499… ⇒ +2 |
NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERORounding is to the nearest value (larger or smaller). If two values are equally near, the value with the smaller absolute value is selected.
| -3.510 ⇒ -4 | +3.510 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -3 | +3.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -3 | +3.499… ⇒ +3 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -2 | +2.500 ⇒ +2 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -2 | +2.499… ⇒ +2 |
PROHIBITEDNo rounding is performed. If the value cannot be represented exactly in the desired format, the EC-SIZE-TRUNCATION condition (exception code 1005) is set (and may be retrieved via the ACCEPT (see ACCEPT FROM Runtime-Info) statement) and the results of the operation are undefined.
| -3.510 ⇒ Undefined | +3.510 ⇒ Undefined |
| -3.500 ⇒ Undefined | +3.500 ⇒ Undefined |
| -3.499… ⇒ Undefined | +3.499… ⇒ Undefined |
| -2.500 ⇒ Undefined | +2.500 ⇒ Undefined |
| -2.499… ⇒ Undefined | +2.499… ⇒ Undefined |
TOWARD-GREATERRounding is toward the nearest value whose algebraic value is larger.
| -3.510 ⇒ -3 | +3.510 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -3 | +3.500 ⇒ +4 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -3 | +3.499… ⇒ +4 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -2 | +2.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -2 | +2.499… ⇒ +3 |
TOWARD-LESSERRounding is toward the nearest value whose algebraic value is smaller.
| -3.510 ⇒ -4 | +3.510 ⇒ +3 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -4 | +3.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -4 | +3.499… ⇒ +3 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -3 | +2.500 ⇒ +2 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -3 | +2.499… ⇒ +2 |
TRUNCATIONRounding is to the nearest value whose magnitude is smaller.
| -3.510 ⇒ -3 | +3.510 ⇒ +3 |
| -3.500 ⇒ -3 | +3.500 ⇒ +3 |
| -3.499… ⇒ -3 | +3.499… ⇒ +3 |
| -2.500 ⇒ -2 | +2.500 ⇒ +2 |
| -2.499… ⇒ -2 | +2.499… ⇒ +2 |
GnuCOBOL, like other COBOL dialects, includes a number of data items that are automatically available to a programmer without the need to actually define them in the data division. COBOL refers to such items as registers or special registers. The special registers available to a GnuCOBOL program are as follows:
COB-CRT-STATUSPIC 9(4) — This is the default data item allocated for use by the ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item), if no CRT STATUS (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause was specified..
DEBUG-ITEMGroup Item — A group item in which debugging information generated by a USE FOR DEBUGGING section in the declaratives area of the procedure division will place information documenting why the USE FOR DEBUGGING procedure was invoked. Consult the DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) documentation for information on the structure of this register.
LINAGE-COUNTERBINARY-LONG SIGNED — An occurrence of this register exists for each selected file having a LINAGE (see File/Sort-Description) clause. If there are multiple files whose file descriptions have LINAGE clauses, any explicit references to this register will require qualification (using OF file-name). The value of this register will be the current logical line number within the page body. The value of this register cannot be modified.
LINE-COUNTERBINARY-LONG SIGNED — An occurrence of this register exists for each report defined in the program (via an RD (see REPORT SECTION)). If there are multiple reports, any explicit references to this register not made in the report section will require qualification (OF report-name). The value of this register will be the current logical line number on the current page. The value of this register cannot be modified.
NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERSBINARY-LONG SIGNED — This register contains the number of arguments passed to a subroutine — the same value that would be returned by the C$NARG built-in system subroutine (see C$NARG). Its value will be zero when referenced in a main program. This register, when referenced from within a user-defined function, returns a value of one (‘1’) if the function has any number of arguments and a zero if it has no arguments.
PAGE-COUNTERBINARY-LONG SIGNED — An occurrence of this register exists for each report having an RD (see REPORT SECTION). If there are multiple such reports, any explicit references to this register not made in the report section will require qualification ( OF report-name). The value of this register will be the current report page number. The value of this register cannot be modified.
RETURN-CODEBINARY-LONG SIGNED — This register provides a numeric data item into which a subroutine may MOVE (see MOVE) a value (which will then be available to the calling program) prior to transferring control back to the program that called it, or into which a main program may MOVE a value before returning control to the operating system. Many built-in subroutines will return a value using this register. These values are — by convention — used to signify success (usually with a value of 0) or failure (usually with a non-zero value) of the process the program was attempting to perform. This register may also be modified by a subprogram as a result of that subprogram’s use of the RETURNING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION RETURNING) clause.
SORT-RETURNBINARY-LONG SIGNED — This register is used to report the success/fail status of a RELEASE (see RELEASE) or RETURN (see RETURN) statement. A value of 0 is reported on success. A value of 16 denotes failure. An AT END (see AT END + NOT AT END) condition on a RETURN is not considered a failure.
WHEN-COMPILEDPIC X(16) — This register contains the date and time the program was compiled in the format ‘mm/dd/yyhh.mm.ss’. Note that only a two-digit year is provided.
LENGTH OF numeric-literal-1 | identifier-1 ~~~~~~
Alphanumeric literals and identifiers may optionally be prefixed with the LENGTH OF clause. The compile-time value generated by this clause will be the number of bytes in the alphanumeric literal or the defined size (in bytes) of the identifier.
OF is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
Here is an example. The following two GnuCOBOL statements both display the same result (27):
01 Demo-Identifier PIC X(27).
...
DISPLAY LENGTH OF "This is a LENGTH OF Example"
DISPLAY LENGTH OF Demo-Identifier
LENGTH OF clause on a literal or identifier reference may generally be used anywhere a numeric literal might be specified, with the following exceptions:
ACCEPT { identifier-1 } [ FROM mnemonic-name-1 ]
~~~~~~ ~~~~
{ OMITTED }
~~~~~~~
[ END-ACCEPT ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to read a value from the console window or the standard input device and store it into a data item (identifier-1).
FROM clause is specified, FROM CONSOLE is assumed.
CONSOLE, STDIN, SYSIN or SYSIPT, or a user-defined (see SPECIAL-NAMES) mnemonic name attached to one of those four device names.
CONSOLE) or from the system-standard input (pipe 0 = STDIN, SYSIN or SYSIPT) and will be saved in identifier-1.
NUMVAL intrinsic function (see NUMVAL), except that none of the trailing sign formats are honoured.
ACCEPT identifier-1
~~~~~~
FROM { COMMAND-LINE }
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ARGUMENT-NUMBER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ARGUMENT-VALUE }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ [ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ] }
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ [ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ] }
[ END-ACCEPT ] ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve information from the program’s command line.
ON is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
COMMAND-LINE option, you will retrieve the entire set of arguments entered on the command line that executed the program, exactly as they were specified. Parsing that returned data into its meaningful information will be your responsibility.
COMMAND-LINE or ARGUMENT-VALUE in a *nix based platform and that includes Linux, OSX, BSD and under windows running msys or MinGW etc, the shell process will expand any arguments that have a ‘*’ in the list — such as ‘a*’, ‘abc*.*’, etc. — and create a list of all files that match the pattern. To avoid this if not wanted, put all such argument within quotes, e.g., progundertest "a*" b c d "ef*" "*hg" and the text within quotes will be passed verbatim to the program (as in the example progundertest).
ARGUMENT-NUMBER, you will be asking the GnuCOBOL run-time system to parse the arguments from the command line and return the number of arguments found. Parsing will be conducted according to the following rules:
ARGUMENT-VALUE, you will be asking the GnuCOBOL run-time system to parse the arguments from the command line and return the “current” argument. You specify which argument number is “current” via the ARGUMENT-NUMBER option on the DISPLAY statement (see DISPLAY UPON COMMAND-LINE). Parsing of arguments will be conducted according to the rules set forth above.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to retrieve an ARGUMENT-VALUE. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
ACCEPT identifier-1
~~~~~~
FROM { ENVIRONMENT-VALUE }
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ENVIRONMENT { literal-1 } }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } }
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-ACCEPT ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve environment variable values.
ON is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
ENVIRONMENT-VALUE, you will be asking the GnuCOBOL run-time system to retrieve the value of the environment variable whose name is currently in the
ENVIRONMENT-NAME register. A value may be placed into the ENVIRONMENT-NAME register using the ENVIRONMENT-NAME option of the DISPLAY statement (see DISPLAY UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME).
ENVIRONMENT option, where you specify the environment variable whose value is to be retrieved right on the ACCEPT statement itself.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to an attempt to retrieve the value of a non-existent environment variable or the successful retrieval of an environment variable’s value, respectively. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
ACCEPT { identifier-1 }
~~~~~~
{ OMITTED }
~~~~~~~
[{ FROM EXCEPTION-STATUS }]
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[{ FROM CRT ] [ MODE IS BLOCK ]}
~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ AT { | LINE NUMBER { integer-1 } | } ]
~~ { | ~~~~ { identifier-2 } | }
{ | COLUMN|COL|POSITION|POS NUMBER { integer-2 }
{ | ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~ { identifier-3 }
{ }
{ { integer-3 } }
{ { identifier-4 } }
[ WITH [ Attribute-Specification ]...
~~~~
[ LOWER|UPPER ]
~~~~~ ~~~~~
[ SCROLL { UP } [ { integer-4 } LINE|LINES ] ]
~~~~~~ { ~~ } { identifier-5 }
{ DOWN }
~~~~
[ TIMEOUT|TIME-OUT AFTER { integer-5 } ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { identifier-6 }
[ CONVERSION ]
~~~~~~~~~~
[ UPDATE ]
~~~~~~
[ SIZE { integer-6 } ]
~~~~ { identifier-7 }
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-ACCEPT ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The
FROM CRT,
MODE IS BLOCK and
CONVERSION
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve data from a formatted console window screen.
AFTER, IS, NUMBER and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
COLUMN, COL and POSITION are interchangeable.
TIMEOUT and TIME-OUT are interchangeable.
SCREEN SECTION (see SCREEN SECTION), any AT, Attribute-Specification, LOWER, UPPER or SCROLL clauses will be ignored. In these cases, an implied DISPLAY (see DISPLAY screen-data-item) of identifier-1 will occur before input is accepted. Coding an explicit DISPLAY identifier-1 before an ACCEPT identifier-1 is redundant and will incur the performance penalty of painting the screen contents twice.
AT clauses provide a means of positioning the cursor to a specific spot on the screen before the screen is read. One or the other (but not both) may be used, as follows:
LINE and COLUMN clauses provide one mechanism for specifying the line and column position to which the cursor will be positioned before allowing the user to enter data. In the absence of one or the other, a value of 1 will be assumed for the one that is missing. The author’s personal preference, however, is to explicitly code both.
ACCEPT.
WITH options (including the various individual Attribute-Specifications) should be coded only once.
ACCEPT statement; these are the same as those allowed for SCREEN SECTION data items. A particular Attribute-Specification may be used only once in any ACCEPT:
AUTO (see AUTO), AUTO-SKIP (see AUTO-SKIP), AUTOTERMINATE (see AUTOTERMINATE), TAB
BACKGROUND-COLOR (see BACKGROUND-COLOR)
BEEP (see BEEP), BELL (see BELL)
BLINK (see BLINK)
FOREGROUND-COLOR (see FOREGROUND-COLOR)
FULL (see FULL), LENGTH-CHECK (see LENGTH-CHECK)
HIGHLIGHT (see HIGHLIGHT)
LEFTLINE (see LEFTLINE)
LOWLIGHT (see LOWLIGHT)
OVERLINE (see OVERLINE)
PROMPT (see PROMPT)
PROTECTED (see PROTECTED)
REQUIRED (see REQUIRED), EMPTY-CHECK (see EMPTY-CHECK)
REVERSE-VIDEO (see REVERSE-VIDEO)
SECURE (see SECURE), NO-ECHO (see NO-ECHO)
UNDERLINE (see UNDERLINE)
SCROLL option will cause the entire contents of the screen to be scrolled UP or DOWN by the specified number of lines before any value is displayed on the screen. It is syntactically allowable to specify a SCROLL UP clause as well as a SCROLL DOWN clause. In such an instance, it is the last one specified that will be honoured. If no LINES specification is made, 1 LINE will be assumed.
TIMEOUT option will cause the ACCEPT to wait no more than the specified number of seconds for input. The wait count may be specified as a positive integer or a numeric data item with a positive value.
UPDATE option will enable the supplied data field to be updated having been displayed on screen prior to data being entered by overwriting, if needed. When this option is not used the input field is cleared prior to input and this is the default but can be changed by the use of compiler steering command -faccept-with-update that can be input when starting the compiler or included in the configuration file e.g., default.conf used when selected by default -std=default. For more information see cobc - The GnuCOBOL Compiler option switches) and Compiler Configuration Files.
ACCEPT statement will be terminated by any of the following events:
TIMEOUT timer — this will be treated as if the Enter key had been pressed with no data being entered.
COB_SCREEN_EXCEPTIONS run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) is set to any non-blank value.
COB_SCREEN_ESC run-time environment variable as well as
COB_SCREEN_EXCEPTIONS run-time environment variable are set to any non-blank value.
SCREEN SECTION:
PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause of that item. This will be enforced at runtime by the ACCEPT statement.
NUMVAL intrinsic function (see NUMVAL) input (no decimal points are allowed, however). The value stored into the screen data item will be as if the input were passed to that function.
NUMVAL-C intrinsic function (see NUMVAL-C) input (again, no decimal points are allowed). The value stored into the screen data item will be as if the input were passed to that function.
SCREEN SECTION:
PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause of that item, although that will not be enforced by the ACCEPT statement. You may use Class Conditions (see Class Conditions) after the data is accepted to enforce the data type.
NUMVAL intrinsic function (see NUMVAL) input (no decimal points are allowed, however). The value stored into identifier-1 will be as if the input were passed to that function.
NUMVAL-C intrinsic function (see NUMVAL-C) input (again, no decimal points are allowed). The value stored into identifier-1 will be as if the input were passed to that function.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of the screen I/O attempt. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
After this format of the ACCEPT statement is executed, the program’s CRT STATUS (see SPECIAL-NAMES) identifier will be populated with one of the following:
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0000 | ENTER key pressed |
| 1001–1064 | F1–F64, respectively, were pressed |
| 2001 | PgUp was pressed |
| 2002 | PgDn was pressed |
| 2003 | Up-Arrow was pressed |
| 2004 | Down-Arrow was pressed |
| 2005 | Esc was pressed |
| 2006 | PrtSc (Print Screen) was pressed |
| 2007 | Tab |
| 2008 | Back Tab |
| 2009 | Key Left |
| 2010 | Key Right |
| 2011 | Insert Key on accept omitted |
| 2012 | Delete Key on accept omitted |
| 2013 | Backspace Key on accept omitted |
| 2014 | Home Key on accept omitted |
| 2015 | End Key on accept omitted |
| 2040- | 2095 Exception keys for Mouse Handling |
| 2040 | Mouse Move |
| 2041 | Left Pressed |
| 2042 | Left Released |
| 2043 | Left Dbl Click |
| 2044 | Mid Pressed |
| 2045 | Mid Released |
| 2046 | Mid Dbl Click |
| 2047 | Right Pressed |
| 2048 | Right Released |
| 2049 | Right Dbl Click |
| 2050 | Shift Move |
| 2051 | Shift Left Pressed |
| 2052 | Shift Left Released |
| 2053 | Shift Left Dbl Click |
| 2054 | Shift Mid Pressed |
| 2055 | Shift Mid Released |
| 2056- | Shift Mid Dbl Click |
| 2057 | Shift Right Pressed |
| 2058 | Shift Right Released |
| 2059 | Shift Right Dbl Click |
| 2060 | Ctrl Move |
| 2061 | Ctrl Left Pressed |
| 2062 | Ctrl Left Released |
| 2063 | Ctrl Left Dbl Click |
| 2064 | Ctrl Mid Pressed |
| 2065 | Ctrl Mid Released |
| 2066 | Ctrl Mid Dbl Click |
| 2067 | Ctrl Right Pressed |
| 2068 | Ctrl Right Released |
| 2069 | Ctrl Right Dbl Click |
| 2070 | Alt Move |
| 2071 | Alt Left Pressed |
| 2072 | Alt Left Released |
| 2073- | Alt Left Dbl Click |
| 2074 | Alt Mid Pressed |
| 2075 | Alt Mid Released |
| 2076 | Alt Mid Dbl Click |
| 2077 | Alt Right Pressed |
| 2078 | Alt Right Released |
| 2079 | Alt Right Dbl Click |
| 2080 | Wheel Up |
| 2081 | Wheel Down |
| 2082 | Wheel Left |
| 2083 | Wheel Right |
| 2084 | Shift Wheel Up |
| 2085 | Shift Wheel Down |
| 2086 | Shift Wheel Left |
| 2087 | Shift Wheel Right |
| 2088 | Ctrl Wheel Up |
| 2089 | Ctrl Wheel Down |
| 2090 | Ctrl Wheel Left |
| 2091 | Ctrl Wheel Right |
| 2092 | Alt Wheel Up |
| 2093 | Alt Wheel Down |
| 2094 | Alt Wheel Left |
| 2095 | Alt Wheel Right |
| Input validation | |
| 8000 | NO Field |
| 8001 | Time Out |
| Other errors | |
| 9000 | Fatal |
| 9001 | Max Field |
For example, on a GnuCOBOL build for a Windows PC using MinGW and “PDCurses”, F1–F12 are the actual F-keys on the PC keyboard, F13–F24 are entered by shifting the F-keys, F25–F36 are entered by holding Ctrl while pressing an F-key and F37–F48 are entered by holding Alt while pressing an F-key. On the other hand, a GnuCOBOL implementation built for Windows using Cygwin and NCurses treats the PCs F1–F12 keys as the actual F1–F12, while shifted F-keys will enter F11–F20. With Cygwin/NCurses, Ctrl- and Alt-modified F-keys aren’t recognized, nor are Shift-F11 or Shift-F12.
Mouse Key codes are populated only if mouse management has been enabled. To enable mouse it is first necessary to set COB_MOUSE_FLAGS (either externally via terminal command, or internally via SET ENVIRONMENT to the applicable ?mouse mask? (specifying which activities you wish the program to detect). Here is an example of setting the mask from a COBOL program:
COPY screenio.cpy.
01 mouse-flags PIC 9(4).
...
COMPUTE mouse-flags = COB-AUTO-MOUSE-HANDLING
+ COB-ALLOW-LEFT-DOWN
+ COB-ALLOW-MIDDLE-DOWN
+ COB-ALLOW-RIGHT-DOWN
SET ENVIRONMENT "COB_MOUSE_FLAGS" TO mouse-flags.
SPECIAL-NAMES. CURSOR IS data-name. *> where data-name is PIC 9(4) or 9(6).
EXCEPTION-STATUS clause may be used to detect exceptions from a prior arithmetic verb such as COMPUTE to recover any errors produced. These are recovered using the function EXCEPTION-STATUS.
ACCEPT identifier-1 FROM { DATE [ YYYYMMDD ] }
~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ DAY [ YYYYDDD ] }
{ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ DAY-OF-WEEK }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~ }
[ END-ACCEPT ] { TIME }
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve the current system date, time or current day of the week and store it into a data item.
| Syntax | Data Retrieved | Format |
|---|---|---|
DATE | Current date in Gregorian form | yymmdd |
DATE YYYYMMDD | Current date in Gregorian form | yyyymmdd |
DAY | Current date in Julian form | yyddd |
DAY YYYYDDD | Current date in Julian form | yyyyddd |
TIME | Time, including hundredths of a second (nn) | hhmmssnn |
ACCEPT identifier-1
~~~~~~
FROM { LINES|LINE-NUMBER }
~~~~ { ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ COLS|COLUMNS }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ ESCAPE KEY }
~~~~~~ ~~~
[ END-ACCEPT ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve information about the console window or about the user’s interactions with it.
LINES and LINE-NUMBER are interchangeable.
COLS and COLUMNS are interchangeable.
LINES and
COLUMNS options:
LINES and
COLUMNS options will retrieve the respective components of the size of the console display.
COLUMNS) or vertical (LINES) character counts — not pixels.
CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE) for another way to retrieve this information.
ESCAPE KEY option may be used after the ACCEPT FROM Screen-Info statement (see ACCEPT FROM Screen-Info) has executed. The result returned will be the four-digit CRT STATUS (see SPECIAL-NAMES) identifier value. See CRT STATUS Codes, for the specific code values.
ACCEPT identifier-1
~~~~~~
FROM { EXCEPTION STATUS }
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ }
{ USER NAME }
~~~~ ~~~~
[ END-ACCEPT ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve run-time information such as the most-recent error exception code and the current user’s user name.
EXCEPTION STATUS option:
PIC X(4) item.
ACCEPT FROM Runtime-Info is to use the EXCEPTION-STATUS intrinsic function (see EXCEPTION-STATUS).
USER NAME option:
ACCEPT OMITTED ~~~~~~ 1. For console : See 6.17.1.1 (ACCEPT FROM CONSOLE Syntax) 2. For Screen : See 6.17.1.4 (ACCEPT screen-data-item Syntax) [ END-ACCEPT ] ~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement will wait for a keyboard event that terminates input; function keys, or Enter/Return, among others. CRT STATUS (COB-CRT-STATUS CRT STATUS (see SPECIAL-NAMES) if not explicitly defined) is set with the keycode, listed in copy/screenio.cpy. It also handles a few other keycode terminations not normally used to complete an extended accept.
COB-SCR-INSERT COB-SCR-DELETE COB-SCR-BACKSPACE COB-SCR-KEY-HOME COB-SCR-KEY-END
ACCEPT exception-status-pic-9-4 FROM EXCEPTION-STATUS ~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ END-ACCEPT ] ~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the ACCEPT statement will receive the status for any exceptions resulting from a previous valid verb.
In WS:
01 exception-status pic 9(4).
..
In PD:
ACCEPT unexpected-rounding FROM EXCEPTION-STATUS
IF unexpected-rounding NOT EQUAL "0000" THEN
DISPLAY "Unexpected rounding. Code " unexpected-rounding
UPON SYSERR
END-IF
ADD { literal-1 }...
~~~ { identifier-1 }
TO { identifier-2
~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-ADD ]
~~~~~~~
This format of the ADD statement generates an intermediate arithmetic sum of the values of all identifier-1 and literal-1) items. The value of each identifier-2 will be replaced, in turn, by the sum of that identifier-2s value and the intermediate sum.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
ADD { literal-1 }...
~~~ { identifier-1 }
[ TO identifier-2 ]
~~
GIVING { identifier-3
~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-ADD ]
~~~~~~~
This format of the ADD statement generates the arithmetic sum of the values of all identifier-1, literal-1) and identifier-2 (if any) items and then saves that sum to each identifier-3.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-3 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-3 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
ADD CORRESPONDING identifier-1
~~~
TO identifier-2
~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-ADD ]
~~~~~~~
This format of the ADD statement generates code equivalent to individual ADD TO (see ADD TO) statements for corresponding matches of data items found subordinate to the two identifiers.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-3 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-3 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
ALLOCATE { expression-1 CHARACTERS } [ { INITIALIZED } ]
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 ~~~~~~~~~~ } { ~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ INITIALISED }
[ RETURNING identifier-2 ] ~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
The ALLOCATE statement is used to dynamically allocate memory at run-time.
INITIALIZED and INITIALISED are interchangeable.
RETURNING identifier-2 may not be specified in the same statement.
BASED (see BASED) attribute. It may be an 01 item defined in the linkage section without the BASED attribute, but using such a data item is not recommended.
POINTER (see USAGE) data item.
RETURNING clause will return the address of the allocated memory block into the specified USAGE POINTER identifier-2 data item. When this option is used, knowledge of the originally-requested size of the allocated memory block will be retained by the program in case a FREE (see FREE) statement is ever issued against identifier-2.
INITIALIZED (or its internationalized alternative INITIALISED), the allocated memory block will be initialized as if an INITIALIZE identifier-1 WITH FILLER ALL TO VALUE THEN TO DEFAULT (see INITIALIZE) were executed.
expression-1 CHARACTERS option is used, INITIALIZED will initialize the allocated memory block to binary zeros. If INITIALIZED is not used, the initial contents of allocated memory will be left to whatever rules of memory allocation are in effect for the operating system the program is running under.
ALLOCATE My-01-Item
With this form, a block of storage equal in size to the defined size of My-01-Item (which must have been defined with the BASED attribute) will be allocated. The address of that block of storage will become the base address of My-01-Item so that it and its subordinate data items become usable within the program.
A second (and equivalent) approach is:
ALLOCATE LENGTH OF My-01-Item CHARACTERS RETURNING The-Pointer SET ADDRESS OF My-01-Item TO The-Pointer
BASED attribute or be defined in LINKAGE SECTION.
Instead of LENGTH OF My-01-Item you may also use a size smaller to the maximum field size as long as you ensure that the complete field is never used.
BASED data item either before its storage has been allocated or after its storage has been released (via the FREE statement) will lead to “unpredictable results”. That’s how reference manuals and standards specifications talk about this situation. In the author’s experience, the results are all too predictable: the program aborts from an attempt to reference an unallocated area of memory.
ALTER procedure-name-1 TO PROCEED TO procedure-name-2 ~~~~~ ~~
The ALTER statement was used in the early years of the COBOL language to edit the object code of a program at execution time, changing a GO TO (see Simple GO TO) statement to branch to a spot in the program different than where the GO TO statement was originally compiled for.
PROCEED and TO (the one after PROCEED) are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
GO TO.
GO TO statement in procedure-name-1 is changed so that the GO TO statement now transfers control to procedure-name-2, rather than to whatever procedure name was specified in the program source code.
ALTER verb has been added to GnuCOBOL for the purpose of enabling GnuCOBOL to pass those National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tests for the COBOL programming language that require support for ALTER.
ALTER in new programs is STRONGLY discouraged.
CALL [ { STDCALL } ] { literal-1 }
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~ } { identifier-1 }
{ STATIC }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ mnemonic-name-1 }
[ USING CALL-Argument... ]
~~~~~
[ RETURNING|GIVING identifier-2 ]
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
[ ON OVERFLOW|EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON OVERFLOW|EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-CALL ]
~~~~~~~~
[ BY { REFERENCE } ]
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ CONTENT }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ VALUE }
~~~~~
{ OMITTED }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ [ UNSIGNED ] [ SIZE IS { AUTO } ] [ { literal-2 } }
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~ } { identifier-2 }
{ DEFAULT }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ integer-1 }
The CALL statement is used to transfer control to a subroutine. See Sub-Programming, for the specifics of using subprograms with GnuCOBOL programs.
BY, IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
EXCEPTION and OVERFLOW are interchangeable.
GIVING and RETURNING are interchangeable.
CALLing program will resume execution starting with the statement immediately following the CALL. Subprograms are not required to return to their callers, however, and are free to halt program execution if they wish.
STATIC /
STDCALL option, if used, affects the linkage conventions that will be used to the subroutine being called, as follows:
STATICcauses the linkage to the subroutine to be performed in such a way as to require the subroutine to be statically-linked with the calling program. Note that this enables static-linking to be used on a subroutine-by-subroutine selective basis.
STDCALLallows system standard calling conventions (as opposed to GnuCOBOL calling conventions) to be used when calling a subroutine. The definition of what constitutes “system standard” may vary from operating system to operating system. Use of this requires special knowledge about the linkage requirements of subroutines you are intending to CALL. Subroutines written in GnuCOBOL do not need this option.
allows a custom defined calling convention to be used. Such mnemonic names are defined using the CALL-CONVENTION (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause. That clause associates a decimal integer value with mnemonic-name-1 such that the individual bits set on or off in the binary equivalent of the integer affect linkage to the subroutine as described in the following chart. Those rows of the chart marked with a “No” in the Supported column represent bit positions (switch settings) in the integer value that are currently accepted (to provide compatibility to other COBOL implementations) if coded, but are otherwise unsupported.
Note that bit 0 is the right-most bit in the binary value.
| Bit | Supported | Meaning if 0 | Meaning if 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | No | Arguments will be passed in right-to-left sequence | Arguments will be passed in left-to-right sequence. |
| 1 | No | The calling program will flush processed arguments from the argument stack. | The called program (subroutine) will flush processed arguments from the argument stack. |
| 2 | Yes | The
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be updated in addition to any RETURNING or GIVING data item. | The
RETURN-CODE special register will not be updated (but any RETURNING or GIVING data item still will). |
| 3 | Yes | If CALL literal is used, the subroutine will be located and linked in with the calling program at compile time or may be dynamically located and loaded at execution time, depending on compiler switch settings and operating system capabilities. | If CALL literal is used, the subroutine can only be located and linked with the calling program at compilation time. |
| 4 | No | OS/2 “OPTLINK” conventions will not be used to CALL the subprogram. | OS/2 “OPTLINK” conventions will be used to CALL the subprogram. |
| 5 | No | Windows 16-bit “thunking” will not be in effect. | Windows 16-bit “thunking” will be used to call the subroutine as a DLL. |
| 6 | Yes | The STDCALL convention will not be used. | The STDCALL convention, required to use the Microsoft Win32 API, will be used. |
Using the STATIC option on a CALL statement is equivalent to using CALL-CONVENTION 8 (only bit 3 set).
Using the STDCALL option on a CALL statement is equivalent to using CALL CONVENTION 64 (only bit 6 set).
COB_PRE_LOAD run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables). If used, this will only pre-load those modules invoked via CALL literal-1, as the runtime contents of identifier-1 cannot be predicted.
INITIAL (see IDENTIFICATION DIVISION) attribute specified on its PROGRAM-ID clause, all of the subprogram’s data division data will be restored to its initial state each time the subprogram is executed, regardless of which entry-point within the subprogram is being referenced.
This [re]-initialization behaviour will always apply to any subprogram’s local-storage (if any), regardless of the use (or not) of INITIAL.
USING clause defines a list of arguments that may be passed from the calling program to the subprogram. The manner in which any given argument is passed to the subroutine depends upon the BY clause (if any) coded (or implied) for that argument, as follows:
BY REFERENCEpasses the address of the argument to the subprogram. If the subprogram changes the contents of that argument, the change will be “visible” to the calling program.
BY CONTENTpasses the address of a copy of the argument to the subprogram. If the subprogram changes the value of such an argument, the change only affects the copy back in the calling program, not the original version.
BY VALUEpasses the actual numeric value of the literal or identifiers contents as the argument. This feature exists to provide compatibility with C, C++ and other languages and would not normally be used when calling GnuCOBOL subprograms. Only numeric literals or numeric data items should be passed in this manner.
If an argument lacks a BY clause, the most-recently encountered BY specification on that CALL statement will be assumed. If the first argument specified on a CALL lacks a BY clause, BY REFERENCE will be assumed.
COB_MAX_FIELD_PARAMS in the call.c file (found in the libcob folder) as well as the last shown #if MAX_CALL_FIELD_PARAMS statement before you run make to build the compiler and run-time library.
RETURNING clause allows you to specify a numeric data item into which the subroutine should return a numeric value. If you use this clause on the CALL, the subroutine should include a RETURNING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION RETURNING) clause on its procedure division header. Of course, a subroutine may pass a value of any kind back in any argument passed BY REFERENCE.
ON OVERFLOW and NOT ON OVERFLOW clauses (or ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION — they are interchangeable) may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to CALL the subroutine. Failure, in this context, is defined as the inability to either locate or load the object code of the subroutine at execution time. See ON OVERFLOW + NOT ON OVERFLOW, for additional information.
PROGRAM-POINTER, avoiding the dynamic runtime lookup. GnuCOBOL keeps a cache of lookups during a program run. Repeated use of a named function does not suffer much penalty, but PROGRAM-POINTER will be just that little bit faster. To set a PROGRAM-POINTER use SET program-reference TO ENTRY "name" (or get the address from an API, and take part in callback programming).
CALL allows a call to a Program-Pointer-1 which is preset using SET program-pointer-1 TO ENTRY x. Additional the RETURNING clause may return a data pointer or a PROGRAM-POINTER
CANCEL { literal-1 }...
~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
The CANCEL statement unloads the dynamically-loadable subprogram module containing the entry-point specified as literal-1 or identifier-1 from memory.
CANCEL statement is subsequently re-executed, all data division storage for that module will once again be in its initial state.
CANCEL statement actually physically unloads a dynamically-loaded module or simply marks it as logically-unloaded depends on the use and value of the
COB_PHYSICAL_CANCEL run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables).
CLOSE { file-name-1 [ { REEL|UNIT [ FOR REMOVAL ] } ] }...
~~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ WITH LOCK }
{ ~~~~ }
{ WITH NO REWIND }
~~ ~~~~~~
The
REEL,
LOCK and
NO REWIND
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional, except for the CLOSE…NO REWIND statement, which will generate a file status of 07 rather than the usual 00 (but take no other action).
The CLOSE statement terminates the program’s access to the specified file(s).
FOR and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
REEL and UNIT are interchangeable.
CLOSE statement may only be executed against files that have been successfully opened.
CLOSE will write any remaining unwritten record buffers to the file (similar to an UNLOCK statement (see UNLOCK)) and release any file locks for the file, regardless of open mode. A closed file will then be no longer available for subsequent I/O statements until it is once again OPENED.
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) or LINE ADVANCING (see LINE ADVANCING) file is closed, a final delimiter sequence will be written to the file to signal the termination point of the final data record in the file. This will only be necessary if the final record written to the file was written with the AFTER ADVANCING (see WRITE) option.
COMMIT ~~~~~~
The COMMIT statement performs an UNLOCK against every currently-open file, but does not close any of the files.
See the UNLOCK statement (see UNLOCK) for additional details.
COMPUTE { identifier-1
~~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
=|EQUAL arithmetic-expression-1
~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-COMPUTE ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
The COMPUTE statement provides a means of easily performing complex arithmetic operations with a single statement, instead of using cumbersome and possibly confusing sequences of ADD, SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY and DIVIDE statements. COMPUTE also allows the use of exponentiation — an arithmetic operation for which no other statement exists in COBOL.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
EQUAL is interchangeable with the use of ‘=’.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-1 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined either as having an identifier-3 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point or attempting to divide by zero. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
CONTINUE
~~~~~~~~
{ identifier-1 }
CONTINUE AFTER { literal-1 } SECONDS
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ { arithmetic-expression-1 } ~~~~~~~
The CONTINUE statement is a no-operation statement that may be coded anywhere an imperative statement (see Imperative Statement) may be coded.
CONTINUE statement has no effect on the execution of the program.
ELSE (see IF) or WHEN (see EVALUATE) clauses where no code is currently expected to be needed, but a place for code to handle the conditions in question is to be reserved in case it’s ever needed.
CONTINUE statement pauses execution for a specified length of time.
DELETE file-name-1 RECORD
~~~~~~
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~
[ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ END-DELETE ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The DELETE statement logically deletes a record from a COBOL file.
KEY and RECORD are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION of file-name-1 cannot be ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL).
SD (see File/Sort-Description)).
SEQUENTIAL access mode, the last input-output statement executed against file-name-1 prior to the execution of the DELETE statement must have been a successfully executed sequential-format READ statement (see Sequential READ). That READ will therefore identify the record to be deleted.
RELATIVE file whose ACCESS MODE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) is either RANDOM or DYNAMIC, the record to be deleted is the one whose relative record number is currently the value of the field specified as the files
RELATIVE KEY in its
SELECT statement.
INDEXED file whose ACCESS MODE (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) is RANDOM or DYNAMIC, the record to be deleted is the one whose primary key is currently the value of the field specified as the
RECORD KEY in the file’s SELECT statement.
INVALID KEY and NOT INVALID KEY clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to delete a record. See INVALID KEY + NOT INVALID KEY, for additional information.
INVALID KEY or NOT INVALID KEY clause may be specified for a file who’s ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL.
DISPLAY { literal-1 }...
~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
[ UPON mnemonic-name-1 ]
~~~~
[ WITH NO ADVANCING ]
~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-DISPLAY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the DISPLAY statement displays the specified identifier contents and/or literal values on the system output device specified via the UPON clause.
ON and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
UPON clause is specified, UPON CONSOLE will be assumed. If the UPON clause is specified, mnemonic-name-1 must be one of the built-in output device names CONSOLE, PRINTER, STDERR, STDOUT, SYSERR, SYSLIST, SYSLST or SYSOUT or a mnemonic name assigned to one of those devices via the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph.
When displaying upon the STDERR or SYSERR devices or to a mnemonic-name-1 attached to one of those two devices, the output will be written to output pipe #2, which will normally cause the output to appear in the console output window. You may, if desired, redirect that output to a file by appending 2> filename to the end of the command that executes the program. This applies to both Windows (any type) or Unix versions of GnuCOBOL.
When displaying upon the CONSOLE, PRINTER, STDOUT, SYSLIST, SYSLST or SYSOUT devices or to a mnemonic-name-1 attached to one of them, the output will be written to output pipe #1, which will normally cause the output to appear in the console output window. You may, if desired, redirect that output to a file by appending 1> filename or simply > filename to the end of the command that executes the program. This applies to both Windows (any type) or Unix versions of GnuCOBOL.
NO ADVANCING clause, if used, will suppress the carriage-return / line-feed sequence that is normally added to the end of any console display.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to display output to the specified device. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
DISPLAY { literal-1 }...
~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
UPON { ARGUMENT-NUMBER|COMMAND-LINE }
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-DISPLAY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
This form of the DISPLAY statement may be used to specify the command-line argument number to be retrieved by a subsequent ACCEPT FROM ARGUMENT-VALUE statement (see ACCEPT FROM COMMAND-LINE) or to specify a new value for the command-line arguments themselves.
ON is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
UPON
ARGUMENT-NUMBER, you will specify which argument (by its relative number) will be retrieved by a subsequent ACCEPT FROM ARGUMENT-VALUE statement.
DISPLAY UPON COMMAND-LINE will influence subsequent ACCEPT FROM COMMAND-LINE statements (which will then return the value you displayed), but will not influence subsequent ACCEPT FROM ARGUMENT-VALUE statements — these will continue to return the original program execution parameters.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to display output to the specified item. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
DISPLAY { literal-1 }... UPON { ENVIRONMENT-VALUE }
~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ ENVIRONMENT-NAME }
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-DISPLAY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
This form of the DISPLAY statement can be used to create or modify environment variables.
ON is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
DISPLAY statements. The following example sets the environment variable MY_ENV_VAR to a value of ‘Demonstration Value’:
DISPLAY "MY_ENV_VAR" UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME DISPLAY "Demonstration Value" UPON ENVIRONMENT-VALUE
CALL 'SYSTEM' (see SYSTEM)) but will not be known to the shell or console window that started the GnuCOBOL program.
SET ENVIRONMENT (see SET ENVIRONMENT) in lieu of DISPLAY to set environment variables as it is much simpler.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to display output to the specified item. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
DISPLAY identifier-1 [ UPON CRT|CRT-UNDER ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ AT { | LINE NUMBER { integer-1 } | } ]
~~ { | ~~~~ { identifier-2 } | }
{ | COLUMN|COL|POSITION|POS NUMBER { integer-2 }
{ | ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~ { identifier-3 }
{ }
{ { integer-3 } }
{ { identifier-4 } }
[ WITH [ Attribute-Specification ]...
~~~~
[ SCROLL { UP } [ { integer-4 } LINE|LINES ] ]
~~~~~~ { ~~ } { identifier-5 }
{ DOWN }
~~~~
[ SIZE { integer-5 }
~~~~ { identifier-6 } ]
[ ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON EXCEPTION imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
[ END-DISPLAY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
The
UPON CRT,
UPON CRT-UNDER and
CONVERSION
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional. They are supported to provide compatibility with COBOL source written for other COBOL implementations.
This format of the DISPLAY statement presents data onto a formatted screen.
AFTER, LINE, LINES, NUMBER and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
COLUMN and POSITION are interchangeable.
LINE and LINES are interchangeable.
SCREEN SECTION (see SCREEN SECTION), any AT, Attribute-Specification and WITH clauses will be ignored. All field definition, cursor positioning and screen control will occur as a result of the screen section definition of identifier-1.
AT clause is to define where on the screen identifier-1 should be displayed. See ACCEPT screen-data-item, for additional information.
WITH clause is to define the visual attributes that should be applied to identifier-1 when it is displayed on the screen as well as other presentation-control characteristics.
DISPLAY statement — these are the same as those allowed for SCREEN SECTION data items. A particular Attribute-Specification may be used only once in any DISPLAY:
BACKGROUND-COLOR (see BACKGROUND-COLOR)
BEEP (see BEEP), BELL (see BELL)
BLANK (see BLANK)
BLINK (see BLINK)
ERASE (see ERASE)
FOREGROUND-COLOR (see FOREGROUND-COLOR)
HIGHLIGHT (see HIGHLIGHT)
LOWLIGHT (see LOWLIGHT)
OVERLINE (see OVERLINE)
REVERSE-VIDEO (see REVERSE-VIDEO)
UNDERLINE (see UNDERLINE)
WITH clause options.
ON EXCEPTION and NOT ON EXCEPTION clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of the screen I/O attempt. See ON EXCEPTION + NOT ON EXCEPTION, for additional information.
When DISPLAY is used with Line and column where multiple variables or literals are used before LINE only the first will be displayed.
If this is needed then the use of CONCATENATE to built more than one element together prior to the display, e.g., DISPLAY FUNCTION CONCATENATE (VARS-1 VARS-2) AT 0201.
When DISPLAY is used without line or column controls only one variable or literal may will appear on a line, so the use of the above example should also be employed.
DIVIDE { literal-1 } INTO { identifier-2
~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-DIVIDE ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the DIVIDE statement will divide a numeric value (specified as a literal or numeric data item) into one or more numeric data items, replacing the value in each of those data items with the result(s).
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being numeric truncation caused by an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point, or an attempt to divide by zero. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
DIVIDE { literal-1 } INTO { literal-2 } GIVING { identifier-3
~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~~~ { identifier-2 } ~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
[ REMAINDER identifier-4 ] ~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-DIVIDE ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the DIVIDE statement will divide one numeric value (specified as a literal or numeric data item) into another numeric value (also specified as a literal or numeric data item) and will then replace the contents of one or more receiving data items with the results of that division.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
REMAINDER clause is coded, there may be only one identifier-3 specified.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause (if any) for that identifier-3 to the move.
REMAINDER clause is specified, the value of the one and only identifier-3 (as stated earlier, if REMAINDER is specified there may only be a single identifier-3 coded on the statement) after it was assigned a value according to the previous rule will be multiplied by the value of literal-1 or identifier-1; that result is then subtracted from the value of literal-2 or identifier-2 and that result is the value which is moved to identifier-4.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point, or an attempt to divide by zero. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
DIVIDE { literal-1 } BY { literal-2 } GIVING { identifier-3
~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~ { identifier-2 } ~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
[ REMAINDER identifier-4 ] ~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-DIVIDE ]
~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the DIVIDE statement will divide one numeric value (specified as a literal or numeric data item) into another numeric value (also specified as a literal or numeric data item) and will then replace the contents of one or more receiving data items with the results of that division.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
REMAINDER clause is coded, there may be only one identifier-3 specified.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause (if any) for that identifier-3 to the move.
REMAINDER clause is specified, the value of the one and only identifier-3 (as stated earlier, if REMAINDER is specified there may only be a single identifier-3 coded on the statement) after it was assigned a value according to the previous rule will be multiplied by the value of literal-2 or identifier-2; that result is then subtracted from the value of literal-1 or identifier-1 and that result is the value which is moved to identifier-4.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point, or an attempt to divide by zero. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
ENTRY literal-1 [ USING ENTRY-Argument... ] ~~~~~ ~~~~~
[ BY { REFERENCE } ] identifier-1
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ CONTENT }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ VALUE }
~~~~~
The ENTRY statement is used to define an alternate entry-point into a subroutine, along with the arguments that subroutine will be expecting.
BY is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
ENTRY statement in a nested subprogram, nor may you use it in any form of user-defined function.
USING clause defines the arguments the subroutine entry-point supports. This list of arguments must match up against the USING clause of any CALL statement that will be invoking the subroutine using this entry-point.
ENTRY statement must be defined in the linkage section of the subroutine in which the ENTRY statement exists.
CALL statements (with regard to the use of upper- and lower-case letters) as it is specified on the ENTRY statement.
REFERENCE,
CONTENT and
VALUE are the same as the equivalent specifications on the CALL statement (see CALL). Whatever specification will be used for an argument on the CALL to this entry-point should match the specification used in the corresponding ENTRY-Argument. The same rules regarding the presence or absence of a BY clause on a CALL statement apply to the presence or absence of a BY clause on the corresponding argument of the ENTRY statement.
EVALUATE Selection-Subject-1 [ ALSO Selection-Subject-2 ]...
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~
{ { WHEN Selection-Object-1 [ ALSO Selection-Object-2 ] }...
~~~~ ~~~~
[ imperative-statement-1 ] }...
[ WHEN OTHER
~~~~ ~~~~~
imperative-statement-other ]
[ END-EVALUATE ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
{ TRUE }
{ ~~~~ }
{ FALSE }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ expression-1 }
{ identifier-1 }
{ literal-1 }
{ ANY }
{ ~~~ }
{ TRUE }
{ ~~~~ }
{ FALSE }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ partial-expression-1 }
{ }
{ { expression-2 } [ THRU|THROUGH { expression-3 } ] }
{ { identifier-2 } ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ { identifier-3 } }
{ { literal-2 } { literal-3 } }
The EVALUATE statement provides a means of defining processing that should take place under any number of mutually-exclusive conditions.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
WHEN clause (in addition to any
WHEN OTHER clause) specified on any EVALUATE statement.
EVALUATE statement. Any number of additional Selection-Subject clauses may be specified, using the
ALSO reserved word to separate each from the prior.
WHEN clause (other than the
WHEN OTHER clause, if any) must have the same number of Selection-Object clauses as there are Selection-Subject clauses.
THRU, the values on both sides of the THRU must be the same class (both numeric, both alphanumeric, etc.).
EVALUATE statement will have its value matched against that of the corresponding Selection-Object on a WHEN clause, in turn, until:
WHEN clause has each of its Selection-Object(s) successfully matched by the corresponding Selection-Subject; this will be referred to as the ’Selected WHEN clause’.
WHEN clauses (except for the WHEN OTHER clause, if any) has been exhausted. In this case, there is no ’Selected WHEN Clause’.
WHEN clause will be executed.
END-EVALUATE or, if there is no END-EVALUATE, the first statement that follows the next period. If, however, the imperative-statement-1 included a GO TO statement, and that GO TO was executed, then control will transfer to the procedure named on the GO TO instead.
WHEN OTHER clause’s imperative-statement-other will be executed, if such a clause was coded.
END-EVALUATE or the first statement that follows the next period if there is no END-EVALUATE. If,however, the imperative-statement-other included a GO TO statement, and that GO TO was executed, then control will transfer to the procedure named on the GO TO instead.
WHEN clause, at least one of the following must be true:
ANY
Selection-Subject = Selection Object is TRUE — See Relation Conditions, for the rules on how the comparison will be made.
THRU clause of the Selection-Object
Selection-Subject Selection-Object evaluates to TRUE
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMOEVALUATE.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Test-Digit PIC 9(1).
88 Digit-Is-Odd VALUE 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.
88 Digit-Is-Prime VALUE 1, 3, 5, 7.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
P1. PERFORM UNTIL EXIT
DISPLAY "Enter a digit (0 Quits): "
WITH NO ADVANCING
ACCEPT Test-Digit
IF Test-Digit = 0
EXIT PERFORM
END-IF
EVALUATE Digit-Is-Odd ALSO Digit-Is-Prime
WHEN TRUE ALSO FALSE
DISPLAY Test-Digit " is ODD"
WITH NO ADVANCING
WHEN TRUE ALSO TRUE
DISPLAY Test-Digit " is PRIME"
WITH NO ADVANCING
WHEN FALSE ALSO ANY
DISPLAY Test-Digit " is EVEN"
WITH NO ADVANCING
END-EVALUATE
EVALUATE Test-Digit
WHEN < 5
DISPLAY " and it's small too"
WHEN < 8
DISPLAY " and it's medium too"
WHEN OTHER
DISPLAY " and it's large too"
END-EVALUATE
END-PERFORM
DISPLAY "Bye!"
STOP RUN
.
Console output when run (user input follows the colons on the prompts for input):
Enter a digit (0 Quits): 1 1 is PRIME and it's small too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 2 2 is EVEN and it's small too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 3 3 is PRIME and it's small too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 4 4 is EVEN and it's small too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 5 5 is PRIME and it's medium too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 6 6 is EVEN and it's medium too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 7 7 is PRIME and it's medium too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 8 8 is EVEN and it's large too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 9 9 is ODD and it's large too Enter a digit (0 Quits): 0 Bye!
EXIT [ { PROGRAM } ]
~~~~ { ~~~~~~~ }
{ FUNCTION }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ PERFORM [ CYCLE ] }
{ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ }
{ SECTION }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ PARAGRAPH }
~~~~~~~~~
The EXIT statement is a multi-purpose statement; it may provide a common end point for a series of procedures, exit an in-line PERFORM, paragraph or section or it may mark the logical end of a subprogram, returning control back to the calling program.
EXIT PROGRAM statement is not legal anywhere within a user-defined function.
EXIT FUNCTION statement cannot be used anywhere within a subroutine.
EXIT PROGRAM nor EXIT FUNCTION may be used within a USE GLOBAL routine in DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES).
EXIT statement with none of the optional clauses:
EXIT statement is used, it must be the only statement in the procedure (paragraph or section) in which it occurs. This is not enforced in GnuCOBOL.
EXIT statement simply provides a common “GO TO” end point for a series of procedures, as may be seen in the following example:
01 Switches.
05 Input-File-Switch PIC X(1).
88 EOF-On-Input-File VALUE ``Y'' FALSE ``N''.
…
SET EOF-On-Input-File TO FALSE.
PERFORM 100-Process-A-Transaction THRU 199-Exit
UNTIL EOF-On-Input-File.
…
100-Process-A-Transaction.
READ Input-File AT END
SET EOF-On-Input-File TO TRUE
GO TO 199-Exit
END-READ.
IF Input-Rec of Input-File = SPACES
GO TO 199-Exit *> IGNORE BLANK RECORDS!
END-IF.
<<process the record just read>>
199-Exit.
EXIT.
EXIT statement takes no other run-time action.
EXIT PARAGRAPH and EXIT SECTION statements:
EXIT PARAGRAPH statement or EXIT SECTION statement resides in a paragraph within the scope of a procedural PERFORM (see Procedural PERFORM), control will be returned back to the PERFORM for evaluation of any TIMES, VARYING and/or UNTIL clauses.
EXIT PARAGRAPH statement or EXIT SECTION statement resides outside the scope of a procedural PERFORM, control simply transfers to the first executable statement in the next paragraph (EXIT PARAGRAPH) or section (EXIT SECTION).
GO TO by utilizing an EXIT PARAGRAPH statement.
01 Switches.
05 Input-File-Switch PIC X(1).
88 EOF-On-Input-File VALUE ``Y'' FALSE ``N''.
…
SET EOF-On-Input-File TO FALSE.
PERFORM 100-Process-A-Transaction
UNTIL EOF-On-Input-File.
…
100-Process-A-Transaction.
READ Input-File AT END
SET EOF-On-Input-File TO TRUE
EXIT PARAGRAPH
END-READ.
IF Input-Rec of Input-File = SPACES
EXIT PARAGRAPH *> IGNORE BLANK RECORDS!
END-IF.
<<process the record just read>>
EXIT PERFORM and EXIT PERFORM CYCLE statements:
EXIT PERFORM and EXIT PERFORM CYCLE statements are intended to be used in conjunction with an in-line PERFORM statement (see Inline PERFORM).
EXIT PERFORM CYCLE statement will terminate the current iteration of the in-line PERFORM, giving control to any TIMES, VARYING and/or UNTIL clauses for them to determine if another cycle needs to be performed.
EXIT PERFORM statement will terminate the in-line PERFORM outright, transferring control to the first statement following the END-PERFORM (if there is one) or to the next sentence following the PERFORM if there is no END-PERFORM.
PERFORM along with EXIT PERFORM and EXIT PERFORM CYCLE statements:
PERFORM FOREVER
READ Input-File AT END
EXIT PERFORM
END-READ
IF Input-Rec of Input-File = SPACES
EXIT PERFORM CYCLE *> IGNORE BLANK RECORDS!
END-IF
<<process the record just read>>
END PERFORM
EXIT PROGRAM and EXIT FUNCTION statements:
EXIT PROGRAM and EXIT FUNCTION statements terminate the execution of a subroutine (i.e. a program that has been CALLed by another) or user-defined function, respectively, returning control back to the calling program.
EXIT PROGRAM statement returns control back to the statement following the CALL (see CALL) of the subprogram. An EXIT FUNCTION statement returns control back to the processing of the statement in the calling program that invoked the user-defined function.
EXIT PROGRAM nor EXIT FUNCTION statements will take any action.
GOBACK statement (see GOBACK) — a standard language element; the GOBACK statement should be strongly considered as the preferred alternative to both EXIT PROGRAM and EXIT FUNCTION for new subprograms.
FREE { [ ADDRESS OF ] identifier-1 }...
~~~~ ~~~~~~~
The FREE statement releases memory previously allocated to the program by the ALLOCATE statement (see ALLOCATE).
ADDRESS OF clause is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this clause has no effect upon the program.
USAGE (see USAGE) of POINTER, or it must be an 01-level data item with the BASED (see BASED) attribute.
USAGE POINTER data item and it contains a valid address, the FREE statement will release the memory block the pointer references. In addition, any BASED data items that the pointer was used to provide an address for will become un-based and therefore unusable. If identifier-1 did not contain a valid address, no action will be taken.
BASED data item and that data item is currently based (meaning it currently has memory allocated to it), its memory is released and identifier-1 will become un-based and therefore unusable. If identifier-1 was not based, no action will be taken.
GENERATE { report-name-1 }
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
The GENERATE statement presents data to a report.
DETAIL (see RWCS Lexicon) report group.
FD a REPORT clause exists for the report in which identifier-1 is a detail group must be opened for OUTPUT or EXTEND at the time the GENERATE is executed. See OPEN, for information on file open modes.
DETAIL group must have been successfully initiated via the INITIATE statement (see INITIATE) and not yet terminated via the TERMINATE statement (see TERMINATE) at the time the GENERATE is executed.
GENERATE statement of this form is executed against a report, the report is said to be a
detail report. If no GENERATE statements of this form are executed against a report, the report is said to be a
summary report.
RD defined for it in the report section.
CONTROL (see RWCS Lexicon) group defined for report-name-1.
DETAIL group defined for report-name-1.
FD a REPORT report-name-1 clause exists must be open for OUTPUT or EXTEND at the time the GENERATE is executed.
INITIATE report-name-1) and not yet terminated (via TERMINATE) at the time the GENERATE is executed. See OPEN, for information on file open modes.
DETAIL group which is defined for report-name-1 will be processed but will not actually be presented to any report page. This will allow summary processing to take place. If all GENERATE statements are of this form, the report is said to be a
summary report. If at least one GENERATE identifier-1 is executed, the report is considered to be a
detail report.
GENERATE statement for a report is executed, the contents of all control fields are saved so they may be referenced during the processing of subsequent GENERATE statements.
GENERATE, it is determined that a control field has changed value (ie. a control break has occurred), the appropriate control footing and control heading processing will take place and a snapshot of the current values of all control fields will again be saved.
GOBACK [ { RETURNING|GIVING { literal-1 } ]
~~~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
The GOBACK statement is used to logically terminate an executing program.
GOBACK behaves like an EXIT PROGRAM or EXIT FUNCTION statement, respectively.
GOBACK will act as a STOP RUN statement.
RETURNING clause provides the opportunity to return a numeric value to the operating system (technically, an exit status The manner in which the exit status value is interrogated by the operating system varies. Windows can use %ERRORLEVEL% to query the exit status while Unix shells such as sh, bash and ksh can query the exit status as $?. Other Unix shells may have different ways to access the exit status.
GO TO procedure-name-1 ~~
This form of the GO TO statement unconditionally transfers control in a program to the first executable statement within the specified procedure-name-1.
TO is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
GO TO statement appears in a consecutive sequence of imperative statements (see Imperative Statement) within a sentence, it must be the final statement in the sentence.
GO TO is executed within the scope of…
PERFORM (see PERFORM), the PERFORM is terminated as control of execution transfers to procedure-name-1.
PERFORM (see PERFORM), and procedure-name-1 lies outside the scope of that PERFORM, the PERFORM is terminated as control of execution transfers to procedure-name-1.
MERGE statement (see MERGE) OUTPUT PROCEDURE or within the scope of either an INPUT PROCEDURE or OUTPUT PROCEDURE of a SORT statement (see File-Based SORT), and procedure-name-1 lies outside the scope of that procedure, the SORT or MERGE operation is terminated as control of execution transfers to procedure-name-1. Any sorted or merged data accumulated to that point is lost.
GO TO procedure-name-1...
~~
DEPENDING ON identifier-1
~~~~~~~~~
This form of the GO TO statement will transfer control to any one of a number of specified procedure names depending on the numeric value of the identifier specified on the statement.
TO is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
PICTURE (see PICTURE) and/or USAGE (see USAGE) of the specified identifier-1 must be such as to define it as a numeric, unedited, preferably unsigned integer data item.
If control of execution is transferred to a procedure named on the statement, and the GO TO is executed within the scope of…
PERFORM (see PERFORM), the PERFORM is terminated as control of execution transfers to the procedure named on the statement.
PERFORM (see PERFORM), and procedure-name-1 lies outside the scope of that PERFORM, the PERFORM is terminated as control of execution transfers to the procedure named on the statement.
MERGE statement (see MERGE) OUTPUT PROCEDURE or within the scope of either an INPUT PROCEDURE or OUTPUT PROCEDURE of a SORT statement (see File-Based SORT), and procedure-name-1 lies outside the scope of that procedure, the SORT or MERGE operation is terminated as control of execution transfers to the procedure named on the statement. Any sorted or merged data accumulated to that point is lost.
GO TO.
GO TO ... DEPENDING ON may be used in a real application situation, and compares it against an alternative — EVALUATE (see EVALUATE).
| GO TO DEPENDING ON | EVALUATE |
|---|---|
GO TO
ACCT-TYPE-1
ACCT-TYPE-2
ACCT-TYPE-3
DEPENDING ON Acct-Type.
<<< Invalid Acct Type >>>
GO TO All-Done.
Acct-Type-1.
<<< Handle Acct Type 1 >>>
GO TO All-Done.
Acct-Type-2.
<<< Handle Acct Type 2 >>>
GO TO All-Done.
Acct-Type-3.
<<< Handle Acct Type 3 >>>
All-Done.
| EVALUATE Acct-Type
WHEN 1
<<< Handle Acct Type 1 >>>
WHEN 2
<<< Handle Acct Type 2 >>>
WHEN 3
<<< Handle Acct Type 3 >>>
WHEN OTHER
<<< Invalid Acct Type >>>
END-EVALUATE.
|
EVALUATE statement to that of this form of the GO TO statement.
IF conditional-expression
~~
THEN { imperative-statement-1 }
{ NEXT SENTENCE }
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ ELSE { imperative-statement-2 } ]
~~~~ { NEXT SENTENCE }
~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ END-IF ]
~~~~~~
The IF statement is used to conditionally execute an imperative statement (see Imperative Statement) or to select one of two different imperative statements to execute based upon the TRUE/FALSE value of a conditional expression.
THEN is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
NEXT SENTENCE and the END-IF scope terminator in the same IF statement.
TRUE, imperative-statement-1 will be executed regardless of whether or not an
ELSE clause is present. Once imperative-statement-1 has been executed, control falls into the first statement following the END-IF or to the first statement of the next sentence if there is no END-IF clause.
ELSE clause is present and conditional-expression evaluates to false, then (and only then) imperative-statement-2 will be executed. Once imperative-statement-2 has been executed, control falls into the first statement following the END-IF or to the first statement of the next sentence if there is no END-IF clause.
NEXT SENTENCE may be substituted for either imperative-statement, but not both. If control reaches a NEXT SENTENCE clause due to the truth or falsehood of conditional-expression, control will be transferred to the first statement of the next sentence found in the program (the first statement after the next period).
NEXT SENTENCE was needed for COBOL programs that were coded according to pre-1985 standards that wish to nest one IF statement inside another. See Use of VERB/END-VERB Constructs, for an explanation of why NEXT SENTENCE was necessary.
Programs coded for 1985 (and beyond) standards don’t need it, instead using the explicit scope-terminator END-IF to inform the compiler where imperative-statement-2 (or imperative-statement-1 if there is no ELSE clause coded) ends. New GnuCOBOL programs should be coded to use the END-IF scope terminator for IF statements. See Use of VERB/END-VERB Constructs, for additional information.
INITIALIZE|INITIALISE identifier-1...
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
[ WITH FILLER ]
~~~~~~
[ { category-name-1 } TO VALUE ]
{ ALL } ~~~~~
~~~
[ THEN REPLACING { category-name-2 DATA BY
~~~~~~~~~ ~~
[ LENGTH OF ] { literal-1 } }... ]
~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
[ THEN TO DEFAULT ]
~~~~~~~
The INITIALIZE statement initializes each identifier-1 with certain specific values, depending upon the options specified.
DATA, OF, THEN, TO and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
INITIALIZE and INITIALISE are interchangeable.
WITH FILLER, REPLACING and DEFAULT clauses are meaningful only if identifier-1 is a group item. They are accepted if it’s an elementary item, but will serve no purpose. The VALUE clause is meaningful in both cases.
The PICTURE (see PICTURE) of the data item only contains A symbols.
The PICTURE of the data item contains only X or a combination of A and 9 symbols.
The PICTURE of the data item contains only X or a combination of A and 9 symbols plus at least one B, 0 (zero) or / symbol.
The data item is one that is described with a picture less USAGE (see USAGE) or has a PICTURE composed of nothing but P, 9, S and V symbols.
The PICTURE of the data item contains nothing but the symbol 9 and at least one of the editing symbols $, +, -, CR, DB, ., ,, * or Z.
The data item is one containing nothing but the N symbol.
The data item contains nothing but N, B, / and 0 symbols.
INITIALIZE statement, a list of initialized fields referred to as the field list in the remainder of this section, will include:
REDEFINES (see REDEFINES) clause in their descriptions.
FILLER 3elementary item subordinate to identifier-1, provided that elementary item neither contains a REDEFINES clause in its definition nor belongs to a group item subordinate to identifier-1 which contains a REDEFINES clause in its definition.
WITH FILLER clause is included on the INITIALIZE statement, then every FILLER elementary item subordinate to each identifier-1 will be included as well, provided that elementary item neither contains a REDEFINES clause in its definition nor belongs to a group item subordinate to identifier-1 which contains a REDEFINES clause in its definition..
MOVE (see MOVE) statement to that effect had been coded. The rules for initialization are as follows:
VALUE,
REPLACING or
DEFAULT clauses are coded, each member of the field list will be initialized as if the figurative constant ZERO (if the field list item is numeric or numeric-edited) or SPACES (otherwise) were being moved to it.
VALUE clause is specified on the INITIALIZE statement, each qualifying member of the field list having a compile-time VALUE (see VALUE) specified in its definition will be initialized to that value. Field list members with VALUE clauses will qualify for this treatment as follows:
ALL keyword was specified on the VALUE clause, all members of the field list with VALUE clauses will qualify.
ALL, only those members of the field list with VALUE clauses that also meet the criteria set down for the specified category-name (see the list above) will qualify.
VALUE initialization to multiple category-name-1 values, you will need to use multiple INITIALIZE statements.
REPLACING clause is specified on the INITIALIZE statement, each qualifying member of the field list that was not already initialized by a VALUE clause, if any, will be initialized to the specified literal-1 or identifier-1 value.
Only those as-yet uninitialized list members meeting the criteria set forth for the specified category-name-2 will qualify for this initialization.
If you need to apply REPLACING initialization to multiple category-name-2 values, you may repeat the syntax after the reserved word REPLACING, as necessary.
DEFAULT clause is specified, any remaining uninitialized members of the field list will be initialized according to the default for their class (numeric and numeric-edited are initialized to ZERO, all others are initialized to SPACES).
INITIALIZE statement works. The sample code makes use of the COBDUMP program to dump the storage that is (or is not) being initialized. See COBDUMP in GnuCOBOL Sample Programs, for a source and cross-reference listing of the COBDUMP program.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DemoInitialize.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Item-1.
05 I1-A VALUE ALL '*'.
10 FILLER PIC X(1).
10 I1-A-1 PIC 9(1) VALUE 9.
05 I1-B USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
05 I1-C PIC A(1) VALUE 'C'.
05 I1-D PIC X/X VALUE 'ZZ'.
05 I1-E OCCURS 2 TIMES PIC 9.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
DISPLAY "MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1"
PERFORM 100-Init-Item-1
CALL "COBDUMP" USING Item-1
DISPLAY " "
DISPLAY "INITIALIZE Item-1"
INITIALIZE Item-1
CALL "COBDUMP" USING Item-1
PERFORM 100-Init-Item-1
DISPLAY " "
DISPLAY "INITIALIZE Item-1 WITH FILLER"
MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1
INITIALIZE Item-1 WITH FILLER
CALL "COBDUMP" USING Item-1
PERFORM 100-Init-Item-1
DISPLAY " "
DISPLAY "INITIALIZE Item-1 ALL TO VALUE"
MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1
INITIALIZE Item-1 ALPHANUMERIC TO VALUE
CALL "COBDUMP" USING Item-1
PERFORM 100-Init-Item-1
DISPLAY " "
DISPLAY "INITIALIZE Item-1 REPLACING NUMERIC BY 1"
MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1
INITIALIZE Item-1 REPLACING NUMERIC BY 1
CALL "COBDUMP" USING Item-1
PERFORM 100-Init-Item-1
DISPLAY " "
STOP RUN
.
100-Init-Item-1.
MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1
.
When executed, this program produces the following output:
MOVE HIGH-VALUES TO Item-1
<-Addr-> Byte <---------------- Hexadecimal ----------------> <---- Char ---->
======== ==== =============================================== ================
00404058 1 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF .........
INITIALIZE Item-1
<-Addr-> Byte <---------------- Hexadecimal ----------------> <---- Char ---->
======== ==== =============================================== ================
00404058 1 FF 30 00 20 20 2F 20 30 30 .0. / 00
INITIALIZE Item-1 WITH FILLER
<-Addr-> Byte <---------------- Hexadecimal ----------------> <---- Char ---->
======== ==== =============================================== ================
00404058 1 20 30 00 20 20 2F 20 30 30 0. / 00
INITIALIZE Item-1 ALL TO VALUE
<-Addr-> Byte <---------------- Hexadecimal ----------------> <---- Char ---->
======== ==== =============================================== ================
00404058 1 2A 2A FF 43 5A 5A 20 FF FF **.CZZ ..
INITIALIZE Item-1 REPLACING NUMERIC BY 1
<-Addr-> Byte <---------------- Hexadecimal ----------------> <---- Char ---->
======== ==== =============================================== ================
00404058 1 FF 31 01 FF FF FF FF 31 31 .1.....11
INITIATE report-name-1 ~~~~~~~~
The INITIATE statement starts Report-Writer Control System (RWCS) processing for a report.
RD (see REPORT SECTION) defined for it.
FD (see File/Sort-Description) a REPORT report-name-1 clause exists must be open for OUTPUT or EXTEND at the time the INITIATE statement is executed. See OPEN, for more information on file open modes.
INITIATE statement will initialize all of the following for each report named on the statement:
LINE-COUNTER special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 0
PAGE-COUNTER special register will be set to 1
INITIATE statement — that will not occur until the first GENERATE statement (see GENERATE) is executed.
INSPECT { literal-1 }
~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
{ function-reference-1 }
[ TALLYING { identifier-2 FOR { ALL|LEADING|TRAILING { literal-2 } }
~~~~~~~~ ~~~ { ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { identifier-3 } }
{ CHARACTERS }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ | { AFTER|BEFORE } INITIAL { literal-3 } | ] }... ]
| ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ { identifier-4 } |
[ REPLACING { { { ALL|FIRST|LEADING|TRAILING { literal-4 } }
~~~~~~~~~ { { ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ { identifier-5 } }
{ CHARACTERS }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
BY { [ ALL ] literal-5 }
~~ { ~~~ }
{ identifier-6 }
[ | { AFTER|BEFORE } INITIAL { literal-6 } | ] }... ]
| ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ { identifier-7 } |
[ CONVERTING { { literal-7 } TO { literal-8 }
~~~~~~~~~~ { identifier-8 } ~~ { identifier-9 }
[ | { AFTER|BEFORE } INITIAL { literal-9 } | ] ]
| ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ { identifier-10 } |
The INSPECT statement is used to perform various counting and/or data-alteration operations against strings.
INITIAL is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this words has no effect upon the program.
CONVERTING clause is specified, neither the
TALLYING nor
REPLACING clauses may be used.
TALLYING or REPLACING clauses are specified, the CONVERTING clause cannot be used.
TALLYING and REPLACING clauses are specified, they must be specified in the order shown.
TALLYING clause may be specified.
TALLYING clause may be specified.
CONVERTING clause replaces one or more individual characters found in the inspect subject with a different character in much the same manner as is possible with the TRANSFORM statement (see TRANSFORM).
REPLACING clause replaces one or more sub strings located in the inspect subject with a different, but equally-sized replacement sub string. If you need to replace a sub string with another of a different length, consider using either the SUBSTITUTE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE) or the SUBSTITUTE-CASE intrinsic function (see SUBSTITUTE-CASE).
TALLYING clause counts the number of occurrences of one or more strings of characters in the inspect subject.
INITIAL clauses may be used to limit the range of characters in the inspect subject that the CONVERTING, REPLACING or TALLYING instruction in which they occur will apply. We call this the ’target range’ of the inspect subject. The target range is defined as follows:
INITIAL clause specified, the target range is the entire inspect subject.
BEFORE phrase, an AFTER phrase or both may be specified. They may be specified in any order.
AFTER specification. The ending point will be the last character immediately preceding the sub string identified by the BEFORE specification.
AFTER is specified, the first character position of the target range will be character position #1 of the inspect subject.
BEFORE is specified, the last character position of the target range will be the last character position of the inspect subject.
TALLYING clause:
INSPECT:
INSPECT Character-String
TALLYING C-ABC FOR ALL "ABC"
There could be multiple counting instructions specified:
INSPECT Character-String
TALLYING C-ABC FOR ALL "ABC"
C-BCDE FOR ALL "BCDE"
When there are multiple instructions, the one specified first will take priority over the one specified second, (and so forth) as the INSPECT proceeds forward through the inspect subject, character-by-character.
With the above example, if the inspect subject were --ABCDEF----BCDEF--, the final result of the counting would be that C-ABC would be incremented by 1 while C-BCDE would be incremented only once; although the human eye clearly sees two ‘BCDE’ sequences, the INSPECT ... TALLYING would only “see” the second — the first would have been processed by the first (higher-priority) counting instruction.
AFTER INITIAL and/or BEFORE INITIAL clause; the rules for specifying target ranges were covered previously.
ALL — identifies every possible target sub string that occurs within the target range. There are three occurrences of ALL 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd.
LEADING — identifies only an occurrence of the target sub string found either at the first character position of the target range or immediately following a previously-found occurrence. There are no occurrences of LEADING 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd, but there is one occurrence of LEADING 'a' (the first character).
TRAILING — identifies only an occurrence of the target sub string found either at the very end of the target range or toward the end, followed by nothing but other occurrences. There are no occurrences of LEADING 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd, but there are two occurrences of TRAILING 'd'.
The CHARACTERS option will match any one single character, regardless of what that character is.
INSPECT statement will not zero-out identifier-2 at the start of execution of the INSPECT — it is the programmer’s responsibility to ensure that all identifier-2 data items are properly initialized to the desired starting values prior to execution of the INSPECT.
REPLACING clause:
INSPECT:
INSPECT Character-String
REPLACING ALL "ABC" BY "DEF"
There could be multiple replacement instructions:
INSPECT Character-String
REPLACING ALL "ABC" BY "DEF"
ALL "BCDE" BY "WXYZ"
When there are multiple replacement instructions, the one specified first will take priority over the one specified second, (and so forth) as the INSPECT proceeds forward through the inspect subject, character-by-character.
With the above example, if the inspect subject were --ABCDEF----BCDEF--, the final result of the replacement would be --DEFDEF----WXYZF--.
AFTER INITIAL and/or BEFORE INITIAL clause; the rules for specifying target ranges were covered previously.
BY keyword, may be defined as a literal value (figurative constants are allowed) or by the contents of an identifier. If the target sub string is specified as a figurative constant, it will be assumed to have a length of one (‘1’) character. The keywords before the literal or identifier control how many target sub strings could be identified from that replacement instruction, as follows:
ALL — identifies every possible target sub string that occurs within the target range. There are three occurrences of ALL 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd.
FIRST — the first occurrence of the target sub string found within the target range. The FIRST 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd would be the one found between the ‘a’ and ‘b’ characters.
LEADING — an occurrence of the target sub string found either at the first character position of the target range or immediately following a previously-found occurrence. There are no occurrences of LEADING 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd, but there is one occurrence of LEADING 'a' (the first character).
TRAILING — an occurrence of the target sub string found either at the very end of the target range or toward the end, followed by nothing but other occurrences. There are no occurrences of LEADING 'XX' found in aXXabbXXccXXdd, but there are two occurrences of TRAILING 'd'.
The CHARACTERS option will match any one single character. When you use this option, the replacement sub string (see the next item) must be exactly one character in length.
BY keyword. They too may be specified as a literal, either with or without an ALL prefix (again, figurative constants are allowed) or the value of an identifier. If a figurative constant is coded, the ALL keyword will be assumed, even if it wasn’t specified. Literals without ALL will either be truncated or padded with spaces on the right to match the length of the target sub string. Literals with ALL or figurative constants will be repeated as necessary to match the length of the target sub string. Identifiers specified as replacement sub strings must be defined with a length equal to that of the target sub string.
REPLACING and TALLYING are specified:
INSPECT statement will make a single pass through the sequence of characters comprising the inspect subject. As the pointer to the current inspect target character reaches a point where it falls within the explicit or implicit target ranges specified on the operational instructions of the two clauses, the actions specified by those instructions will become eligible to be taken. As the character pointer reaches a point where it falls past the end of target ranges, the instructions belonging to those target ranges will become disabled.
REPLACING and/or TALLYING operational instructions active. Only one of the TALLYING and one of the REPLACING instructions (if any) can be executed for any one character pointer position. In each case, it will be the first of the instructions in each category that produces a match with its target string specification.
TALLYING and a REPLACING instruction have been selected for execution, the TALLYING instruction will be executed first. This guarantees that TALLYING will compute occurrences based upon the initial value of the inspect subject before any replacements occur.
CONVERTING clause:
CONVERTING clause performs a series of single-character substitutions against a data item in much the same manner as is possible with the TRANSFORM statement (see TRANSFORM).
TALLYING and REPLACING clauses, both of which may have multiple operations specified, there may be only one CONVERTING operation per INSPECT.
MERGE sort-file-1
~~~~~
{ ON { ASCENDING } KEY identifier-1... }...
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ DESCENDING }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER ]
~~~~~~~~~~
[ COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
USING file-name-1 file-name-2...
~~~~~
{ OUTPUT PROCEDURE IS procedure-name-1 }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ [ THRU|THROUGH procedure-name-2 ] }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ GIVING file-name-3... }
{ ~~~~~~ }
The
DUPLICATES clause is syntactically recognized but is otherwise non-functional.
The MERGE statement merges the contents of two or more files that have each been pre-sorted on a set of specified identical keys.
IN, IS, KEY, ON, ORDER, SEQUENCE and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER clause is specified, even if it isn’t.
While any COBOL implementation’s sort or merge facilities guarantee that records with duplicate key values will be in proper sequence with regard to other records with different key values, they generally make no promises as to the resulting relative sequence of records having duplicate key values with one another.
Some COBOL implementations provide this optional clause to force their sort and merge facilities to retain duplicate key-value records in their original input sequence, relative to one another.
MERGE statement must be defined using a sort description (SD (see File/Sort-Description)). This file is referred to in the remainder of this discussion as the merge work file.
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) or ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL) files. These files must be defined using a file description (FD (see File/Sort-Description)).
PICTURE (see PICTURE) of fields, USAGE (see USAGE) of fields, size of fields and location of fields within the records should match field-by-field across all files, at least as far as the KEY fields are concerned.
MERGE statement is to define the records of all files involved as simple elementary items of the form 01 record-name PIC X(n). where n is the record size. The only file where records are actually described in detail would then be sort-file-1.
USING clause:
MERGE is executed.
MERGE statement’s
KEY clause.
SAME RECORD AREA (see SAME RECORD AREA), SAME SORT AREA or SAME SORT-MERGE AREA statement.
MERGE statement begins execution, the first record in each of the
USING files is read automatically.
MERGE statement executes, the current record from each of the USING files is examined and compared to each other according to the rules set forth by the KEY clause and the alphabet (see Alphabet-Name-Clause) specified on the
COLLATING SEQUENCE clause. The record that should be next in sequence will be written to the merge work file and the USING file from which that record came will be read so that its next record is available. As end-of-file conditions are reached on USING files, those files will be excluded from further processing — processing continues with the remaining files until all the contents of all of them have been exhausted.
GIVING clause was specified, or will be processed by utilizing an
OUTPUT PROCEDURE.
GIVING is specified, none of the file-name-3 files can be open at the time the MERGE statement is executed.
OUTPUT PROCEDURE clause will be invoked as if by a procedural PERFORM (see Procedural PERFORM) statement with no VARYING, TIMES or UNTIL options specified. Merged records may be read from the merge work file — one at a time — within the output procedure using the RETURN (see RETURN) statement.
A GO TO statement (see GO TO) that transfers control out of the output procedure will terminate the MERGE statement but allows the program to continue executing from the point where the GO TO statement transferred control to. Once an output procedure has been “aborted” using a GO TO it cannot be resumed, and the contents of the merge work file are lost. You may, however, re-execute the MERGE statement itself. Using a GO TO statement to prematurely terminate a merge, or re-starting a previously-cancelled merge is not considered good programming style and should be avoided.
An output procedure should be terminated in the same way a procedural PERFORM statement would be. Usually, this action will be taken once the RETURN statement indicates that all records in the merge work file have been processed, but termination could occur at any time — via an EXIT statement (see EXIT) — if required.
Neither a file-based SORT statement (see File-Based SORT) nor another MERGE statement may be executed within the scope of the procedures comprising the output procedure unless those statements utilize a different sort or merge work file.
MERGE statement itself — is complete.
MOVE { literal-1 } TO identifier-2...
~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~
The Simple MOVE statement moves a specific value to one or more receiving data items.
MOVE statement will replace the contents of one or more receiving data items (identifier-2) with a new value — the one specified by literal-1 or identifier-1.
MOVE involving numeric data will perform any necessary format conversions that might be necessary due to differing USAGE (see USAGE) specifications.
MOVE CORRESPONDING identifier-1 TO identifier-2... ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~
The MOVE CORRESPONDING statement similarly-named items from one group item to another.
CORRESPONDING may be abbreviated as CORR.
MOVE CORRESPONDING on those matches will be as if a series of individual MOVEs were done — one for each match.
MULTIPLY { literal-1 } BY { identifier-2
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-MULTIPLY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The MULTIPLY BY statement computes the product of one or more data items (identifier-2) and either a numeric literal or another data item.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
MULTIPLY { literal-1 } BY { literal-2 } GIVING { identifier-3
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~ { identifier-2 } ~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-MULTIPLY ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The MULTIPLY GIVING statement computes the product of two literals and/or data items and saves that result in one or more other data items.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
OPEN { { INPUT } [ SHARING WITH { ALL OTHER } ] file-name-1
~~~~ { ~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~ { ~~~ }
{ OUTPUT } { NO OTHER }
{ ~~~~~~ } { ~~ }
{ I-O } { READ ONLY }
{ ~~~ } ~~~~ ~~~~
{ EXTEND }
~~~~~~
[ { REVERSED } ] }...
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ WITH { NO REWIND } }
{ { ~~ ~~~~~~ } }
{ { LOCK } }
~~~~
The
NO REWIND, and
REVERSED
clauses are syntactically recognized but are otherwise non-functional.
The OPEN statement makes one or more files described in your program available for use.
OTHER and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
SHARING and WITH LOCK clauses may not both be specified in the same OPEN statement.
A CLOSE statement (see CLOSE)
A DELETE statement (see DELETE)
A READ statement (see READ)
A REWRITE statement (see REWRITE)
A START statement (see START)
An UNLOCK statement (see UNLOCK)
A WRITE statement (see WRITE)
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) or an error procedure established using the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine or even just checking the status field defined. It is up to the programmer to check for bad statuses and respond accordingly such as issue a CLOSE before dealing with the problem.
INPUT,
OUTPUT,
I-O and
EXTEND open modes inform GnuCOBOL of the manner in which you wish to use the file, as follows:
INPUTYou may only read the existing contents of the file — only the CLOSE, READ, START and UNLOCK statements will be allowed. This enforcement takes place at execution time, not compilation time.
OUTPUTYou may only write new content (which will completely replace any previous file contents) to the file — only the CLOSE, UNLOCK and WRITE statements will be allowed. This enforcement takes place at execution time, not compilation time.
I-OYou may perform any operation you wish against the file — all file I/O statements will be allowed.
EXTENDYou may only write new content (which will be appended after the previously existing file contents) to the file — only the CLOSE, UNLOCK and WRITE statements will be allowed. This enforcement takes place at execution time, not compilation time. You cannot extend an empty file; this will not generate a runtime error, but no output will appear in the file.
SHARING clause informs the GnuCOBOL file runtime modules how you are willing to co-exist with any other GnuCOBOL programs that may attempt to open the same file after your program does. See File Sharing, for an explanation of the SHARING clause.
WITH LOCK option will be functional only if your GnuCOBOL build can support it. GnuCOBOL built for MinGW or native Windows will not, because the Unix fcntl primitive doesn’t exist in those environments. GnuCOBOL built for Cygwin or Unix will.
PERFORM procedure-name-1 [ THRU|THROUGH procedure-name-2 ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ { [ WITH TEST { BEFORE } ] { VARYING-Clause } } ]
{ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~ } { UNTIL conditional-expression-1 } }
{ { AFTER } ~~~~~ }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ UNTIL EXIT|FOREVER }
{ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ { literal-1 } TIMES }
{ { identifier-1 } ~~~~~ }
This format of the PERFORM statement is used to transfer control to one or more procedures, which will return control back when complete. Execution of the procedure(s) can be done a single time, multiple times, repeatedly until a condition becomes TRUE or forever (with some way of breaking out of the control of the PERFORM or of halting program execution within the procedure(s)).
WITH is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
FOREVER and UNTIL EXIT are interchangeable.
PERFORM statement. If procedure-name-2 is specified, it must follow procedure-name-1 in the program’s source code.
UNTIL,
UNTIL EXIT,
TIMES, VARYING-Clause (see VARYING) or
FOREVER clauses, the code within the perform scope will be executed once, after which control will return to the statement following the PERFORM.
FOREVER option will repeatedly execute the code within the perform scope with no conditions defined for termination of the repetition — it will be up to the programmer to include an EXIT SECTION statement (see EXIT) or EXIT PARAGRAPH statement within the procedure(s) being performed that will break out of the loop.
TIMES option will repeat the execution of the code within the perform scope a fixed number of times. When the PERFORM statement begins execution, an internal repeat counter (not accessible to the programmer) will be set to the value of literal-1 or the value within identifier-1.
If the counter has a value greater than zero, the statement(s) within the PERFORM scope will be executed, after which the counter will be decremented by 1 with each repetition. Once that counter reaches zero, repetition will cease and control will fall into the next statement following the PERFORM.
If the identifier-1 option was used, altering the value of that data item within the perform scope will not affect the repetition count.
UNTIL conditional-expression-1 option will repeat the code within the perform scope until the specified conditional expression evaluates to a TRUE value.
WITH TEST clause will control whether UNTIL testing occurs BEFORE the statements within the perform scope are executed on each iteration (creating the possibility — if conditional-expression-1 is initially TRUE — that the statements within the perform scope will never be executed) or
AFTER (guaranteeing the statements within the perform scope will be executed at least once).
The default, if this clause is absent, is WITH TEST BEFORE.
This clause may not be coded when the TIMES clause is used.
VARYING-Clause is a mechanism that creates an advanced loop-management mechanism complete with one or more numeric data items being automatically incremented (or decremented) on each loop iteration as well as the termination control of an UNTIL clause. See VARYING, for the details.
PERFORM
~~~~~~~
[ { [ WITH TEST { BEFORE } ] { VARYING-Clause } } ]
{ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~ } { UNTIL conditional-expression-1 } }
{ { AFTER } ~~~~~ }
{ ~~~~~ }
{ UNTIL EXIT|FOREVER }
{ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ { literal-1 } TIMES }
{ { identifier-1 } ~~~~~ }
imperative-statement-1
[ END-PERFORM ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the PERFORM statement is identical in operation to the procedural PERFORM, except for the fact that the statement(s) comprising the perform scope (imperative-statement-1) (see Imperative Statement) are now specified in-line with the PERFORM code rather than in procedures located elsewhere within the program.
VARYING identifier-2 FROM { literal-2 } [ BY { literal-3 } ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { identifier-3 } ~~ { identifier-4 }
[ UNTIL conditional-expression-1 ]
~~~~~
[ AFTER identifier-5 FROM { literal-4 } [ BY { literal-5 } ]
~~~~~ ~~~~ { identifier-6 } ~~ { identifier-7 }
[ UNTIL conditional-expression-2 ] ]...
~~~~~
The VARYING clause, available on both formats of the PERFORM statement, is a looping mechanism that allows for the specification of one or more numeric data items that will be initialized to a programmer-specified value and automatically incremented by another programmer-specified value after each loop iteration.
VARYING portion of the clause:
PERFORM begins execution, the FROM value will be moved to identifier.
PERFORM specifies or implies WITH TEST BEFORE, conditional-expression-1 will be evaluated and processing of the PERFORM will halt if the expression evaluates to TRUE. If WITH TEST BEFORE was not specified or implied, or if the conditional expression evaluated to FALSE, processing proceeds with step C.
GO TO executed within the perform scope transfers control to a point outside the perform scope, processing of the PERFORM will halt.
EXIT PERFORM CYCLE statement (see EXIT)
EXIT PARAGRAPH statement or EXIT SECTION statement when there is only one paragraph (or section) in the perform scope ( this option only applies to a procedural PERFORM)
If WITH TEST AFTER was specified, control will return back to the PERFORM, where conditional-expression-1 will be evaluated, and processing of the PERFORM will halt if the expression evaluates to TRUE. If WITH TEST AFTER was not specified, or if the conditional expression evaluated to FALSE, processing continues with the next step.
BY value, if any, will be added to identifier-2. If no BY is specified, it will be treated as if BY 1 had been specified.
VARYING-Clauses have no AFTER specified. Those that do, however, are establishing a loop-within-a-loop situation where the process described above in steps (‘A’) through (‘F’) will take place from the AFTER, and those six processing steps actually replace step C of the VARYING. This “nesting” process can continue indefinitely, with each additional AFTER.
An example should really help you see this at work. Observe the following code which defines a two-dimensional (3 row by 4 column) table and a pair of numeric data items to be used to subscript references to each element of the table:
01 PERFORM-DEMO.
05 PD-ROW OCCURS 3 TIMES.
10 PD-COL OCCURS 4 TIMES
15 PD PIC X(1).
01 PD-Col-No PIC 9 COMP.
01 PD-Row-No PIC 9 COMP.
Let’s say the 3x4 “grid” defined by the above structure has these values:
A B C D E F G H I J K L
This code will display ABCDEFGHIJKL on the console output window:
PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER
VARYING PD-Row-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Row-No = 3
AFTER PD-Col-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Col-No = 4
DISPLAY PD (PD-Row-No, PD-Col-No) WITH NO ADVANCING
END-PERFORM
While this code will display AEIBFJCGKDHL on the console output window:
PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER
VARYING PD-Col-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Col-No = 4
AFTER PD-Row-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Row-No = 3
DISPLAY PD (PD-Row-No, PD-Col-No) WITH NO ADVANCING
END-PERFORM
While we’re looking at sample code, this code displays ABCEFG:
PERFORM
VARYING PD-Row-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Row-No = 3
AFTER PD-Col-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Col-No = 4
DISPLAY PD (PD-Row-No, PD-Col-No) WITH NO ADVANCING
END-PERFORM
By removing the WITH TEST clause, the statement is now assuming WITH TEST BEFORE. Since testing now happens before the DISPLAY statement gets executed, when PD-Row-No is 3 and PD-Col-No is 4 the DISPLAY statement won’t be executed.
Most COBOL programmers, when using WITH TEST BEFORE explicitly or implicitly have developed the habit of using ‘>’ rather than ‘=’ on UNTIL clauses. This would make the sample code:
PERFORM
VARYING PD-Row-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Row-No > 3
AFTER PD-Col-No FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL PD-Col-No > 4
DISPLAY PD (PD-Row-No, PD-Col-No) WITH NO ADVANCING
END-PERFORM
With this change, ABCDEFGHIJKL is once again displayed.
READ file-name-1 [ { NEXT|PREVIOUS } ] RECORD [ INTO identifier-1 ]
~~~~ { ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ } ~~~~
[ { IGNORING LOCK } ]
{ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH [ NO ] LOCK }
{ ~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH KEPT LOCK }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH IGNORE LOCK }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH WAIT }
~~~~
[ AT END imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~
[ NOT AT END imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~
[ END-READ ]
~~~~~~~~
This form of the READ statement retrieves the next (or previous) record from a file.
AT, RECORD and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FD (see File/Sort-Description), not an SD.
INPUT (see File OPEN Modes) or I-O.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) file with an ACCESS MODE RANDOM, this statement cannot be used.
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL, this is the only format of the READ statement that is available.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) file with ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC, this statement as well as a random READ (see Random READ) may be used.
NEXT and
PREVIOUS specify what “direction of travel” the reading process will take through the file. If neither is specified, NEXT is assumed.
PREVIOUS option is available only for ORGANIZATION INDEXED files.
READ file-name-1 is perfectly legal according to both READ formats. For that reason, when ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC has been specified and you want to tell the GnuCOBOL compiler that this minimal statement should be treated as a sequential READ, you must add either NEXT or PREVIOUS to the statement (otherwise it will be treated as a random READ).
NEXT or PREVIOUS option. The newly-retrieved record data will be saved into the 01-level record structure(s) that immediately follow the file’s FD. If the optional
INTO clause is present, a copy of the just-retrieved record will be automatically moved to identifier-1.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE file has been successfully read, the file’s RELATIVE KEY (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) field will be automatically populated with the relative record number (ordinal occurrence number) of the record in the file.
LOCK options may be used to manually control access to the retrieved record by other programs while this program is running. See Record Locking, to review the various record locking behaviours.
AT END clause, if coded, is used to detect and react to the failure of an attempt to retrieve another record from the file due to an end-of-file (i.e. no more records) condition.
NOT AT END clause, if coded, will check for a file status value of 00. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
READ file-name-1 RECORD [ INTO identifier-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~
[ { IGNORING LOCK } ]
{ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH [ NO ] LOCK }
{ ~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH KEPT LOCK }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH IGNORE LOCK }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~ }
{ WITH WAIT }
~~~~
[ KEY IS identifier-2 ]
~~~
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~
[ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ END-READ ]
~~~~~~~~
This form of the READ statement retrieves an arbitrary record from an ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) file.
IS, KEY (on the INVALID and NOT INVALID clauses), RECORD and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FD (see File/Sort-Description), not an SD.
INPUT (see File OPEN Modes) or I-O.
ACCESS MODE of file-name-1 is SEQUENTIAL, or the ORGANIZATION of the file is any form of sequential, this format of the READ statement cannot be used.
ACCESS MODE of file-name-1 is RANDOM, this is the only format of the READ statement that is available.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) file with ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC, this statement as well as a sequential READ (see Sequential READ) may be used.
READ file-name-1 is perfectly legal according to both READ formats. For that reason, when ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC has been specified and you want to tell the GnuCOBOL compiler that this minimal statement should be treated as a random READ, you must omit the NEXT or PREVIOUS available to the sequential format of the READ statement to ensure the statement will be treated as a random READ.
KEY clause tells the compiler how a record is to be located in the file.
If the KEY clause is absent, and the file is
ORGANIZATION RELATIVEthe contents of the field declared as the file’s RELATIVE KEY will be used to identify a record
ORGANIZATION INDEXEDthe contents of the field declared as the file’s RECORD KEY will be used to identify a record.
If the KEY clause is specified, and the file is
ORGANIZATION RELATIVEthe contents of identifier-2 will be used as the relative record number of the record to be accessed. identifier-2 need not be the RELATIVE KEY (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) field of the file (although it could be if you wish).
ORGANIZATION INDEXEDidentifier-2 must be the RECORD KEY (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) or one of the file’s ALTERNATE RECORD KEY fields (if any). The current contents of that field will identify the record to be accessed. If an alternate record key is used, and that key allows duplicate values, the record accessed will be the first one having that key value.
FD. If the optional
INTO clause is present, a copy of the just-retrieved record will be automatically moved to identifier-1.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE file has been successfully read, the file’s RELATIVE KEY (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) field will be automatically populated with the relative record number (ordinal occurrence number) of the record in the file.
LOCK options may be used to manually control access to the retrieved record by other programs while this program is running. See Record Locking, to review the various record locking behaviours.
INVALID KEY and NOT INVALID KEY clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, by detecting non-zero (typically 23 = key not found = record not found) and 00 file status codes, respectively. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
READY TRACE ~~~~~ ~~~~~
The READY TRACE statement turns procedure or procedure-and-statement tracing on.
RESET TRACE statement (see RESET TRACE).
COB_SET_TRACE run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) provides another way to control tracing. If this environment variable is set to a value of ‘Y’ prior to the start of program execution, tracing starts at the point the program begins execution, as if READY TRACE were the first executed statement.
RELEASE record-name-1 [ FROM { literal-1 } ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { identifier-1 }
The RELEASE statement adds a new record to a sort work file.
INPUT PROCEDURE of a file-based SORT statement (see File-Based SORT).
SD (see File/Sort-Description)) of the sort work file being processed by the current sort.
FROM clause will cause literal-1 or identifier-1 to be automatically moved into record-name-1 prior to writing record-name-1’s contents to the file-name-1. If this clause is not specified, it is the programmer’s responsibility to populate record-name-1 with the desired data prior to executing the RELEASE.
RESET TRACE ~~~~~ ~~~~~
The RESET TRACE statement turns procedure or procedure-and-statement tracing off.
READY TRACE statement (see READY TRACE) can be used to turn tracing on.
COB_SET_TRACE run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) provides another way to control tracing. If this environment variable is set to a value of ‘Y’ prior to the start of program execution, tracing started at the point the program begins execution, as if READY TRACE were the first executed statement. The RESET TRACE statement, if executed, will then turn off tracing.
RETURN sort-file-name-1 RECORD
~~~~~~
[ INTO identifier-1 ]
~~~~
AT END imperative-statement-1
~~~
[ NOT AT END imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~
[ END-RETURN ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The RETURN statement reads a record from a sort or merge work file.
AT and RECORD are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
RETURN statement is valid only within the OUTPUT PROCEDURE of a file-based SORT (see File-Based SORT) or a MERGE statement (see MERGE) statement.
SD (see File/Sort-Description), not an FD.
RETURN will retrieve the next available record from sort-file-name-1. The newly-retrieved record data will be saved into the 01-level record structure(s) that immediately follow the file’s SD. If the optional
INTO clause is present, a copy of the just-retrieved record will be automatically moved to identifier-1.
AT END clause is used to detect and react to the failure of an attempt to retrieve another record from the file due to an end-of-file (i.e. no more records) condition.
NOT AT END clause, if coded, will check checking for a file status value of 00. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
REWRITE record-name-1
~~~~~~~
[ FROM { literal-1 } ]
~~~~ { identifier-1 }
[ WITH [ NO ] LOCK ]
~~ ~~~~
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~
[ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ END-REWRITE ]
~~~~~~~~~~~
The REWRITE statement replaces a logical record on a disk file.
KEY and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
FD (see File/Sort-Description)) of a file that is currently open for I-O (see File OPEN Modes).
FROM clause will cause literal-1 or identifier-1 to be automatically moved into record-name-1 prior to writing record-name-1’s contents to the file-name-1. If this clause is not specified, it is the programmer’s responsibility to populate record-name-1 with the desired data prior to executing the REWRITE.
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) files.
COMMIT (see COMMIT) or UNLOCK statement (see UNLOCK) is issued or that file is closed.
ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL):
READ (see READ) of the file.
FD of the file contains the RECORD CONTAINS or RECORD IS VARYING clause, and that clause allows the record size to vary, the size of record-name-1 cannot be altered.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED):
ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL, the record to be rewritten will be the one retrieved by the most-recently executed READ of the file. If the file has ACCESS MODE RANDOM or ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC, no READ is required before a record may be rewritten — the RELATIVE KEY or RECORD KEY definition for the file, respectively, will specify the record to be updated.
FD of the file contains the RECORD CONTAINS or RECORD IS VARYING clause, and that clause allows the record size to vary, the size can be altered.
LOCK options may be used to manually control access to the re-written record by other programs while this program is running. See Record Locking, to review the various record locking behaviours.
INVALID KEY and NOT INVALID KEY clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, by detecting non-zero (typically 23 = key not found = record not found) and 00 file status codes, respectively. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
ROLLBACK ~~~~~~~~
The ROLLBACK statement has the same effect as if an UNLOCK statement (see UNLOCK) were executed against every open file in the program.
SEARCH table-name-1
~~~~~~
[ VARYING index-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~
[ AT END imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~
{ WHEN conditional-expression-1 imperative-statement-2 }...
~~~~
[ END-SEARCH ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The SEARCH statement is used to sequentially search a table, stopping either once a specific value is located within the table or when the table has been completely searched.
AT is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
USAGE (see USAGE) of INDEX. The search index is either the index-name-1 identifier specified on the
VARYING clause or — if no VARYING is specified — the USAGE INDEX data item implicitly created by an INDEXED BY (see OCCURS) clause in the table’s definition.
SEARCH statement is executed, the current value of the search index data item will define the starting position in the table where the searching process will begin. Typically, one initializes that index to a value of 1 before starting the SEARCH via SET search-index TO 1.
WHEN clause(s) should involve a data element within the table, subscripted using the search index.
TRUE or all have evaluated to FALSE.
WHEN clause whose conditional-expression-n evaluated to TRUE will be executed; after that, the search will be considered complete and control will fall into the first executable statement following the SEARCH.
AT END clause, if any, will be executed. After that, control will fall into the first executable statement following the SEARCH.
SEARCH ALL table-name-1
~~~~~~ ~~~
[ AT END imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~
WHEN conditional-expression-1 imperative-statement-2
~~~~
[ END-SEARCH ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The SEARCH ALL statement performs a binary, or half-interval, search against a sorted table. This is generally significantly faster than performing a sequential SEARCH of a table, especially if the table contains a large number of entries.
AT is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
SEARCH ALL:
OCCURS clause of table-name-1 must contain the following elements:
INDEXED BY entry to define an implicit search index data item with a USAGE (see USAGE) of INDEX.
ASCENDING KEY or
DESCENDING KEY clause to specify the field within the table by which all entries in the table are sorted.
KEY clauses doesn’t mean the data is actually in that sequence in the table — the actual sequence of the data must agree with the KEY clause(s)! A table-based SORT (see Table SORT) can prove very useful in this regard.
KEY field values. If the table has multiple KEY definitions, then no two records in the table may have the same combination of KEY field values.
SEARCH ALL. If rules B and/or C are violated, there will be no message issued by the compiler, but the run-time results of a SEARCH ALL against the table will probably be incorrect.
KEY field(s), using the search index (the table’s INDEXED BY index name) as a subscript.
WHEN clause is to compare the key field(s) of the table, as indexed by the search index data item, against whatever literal and/or identifier values you are comparing the key field(s) to in the conditional-expression-1 in order to locate the desired entry in the table. The search index will be automatically varied in a manner designed to require the minimum number of tests.
SEARCH ALL.
SEARCH ALL. If there is no AT END clause coded, control simply falls into the next statement following the SEARCH ALL.
SEARCH and SEARCH ALL statements as follows:
Here’s a more practical view of the difference. Let’s say that a table has 1,000 entries in it. With a sequential search, on average, you’ll have to check 500 of them to find an entry and you’ll have to look at all 1,000 of them to find that an entry doesn’t exist.
With a binary search, express the number of entries as a binary number (1,000 = 1111101000), count the number of digits in the result (which is, essentially, what a logarithm is, when rounded up to the next integer — the number of digits a decimal number would have if expressed in the logarithm’s number base). In this case, we end up with 10 — that is the worst-case number of tests required to find an entry or to identify that it doesn’t exist. That’s quite an improvement!
SET ENVIRONMENT { literal-1 } TO { literal-2 }
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~ { identifier-2 }
The SET ENVIRONMENT statement provides a straight-forward means of setting environment values from within a program.
CALL "SYSTEM") but will not be known to the shell or console window that started the GnuCOBOL program.
This is a much simpler and more readable means of setting environment variables than by using the DISPLAY UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME statement (see DISPLAY UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME). For example, these two code sequences produce identical results:
DISPLAY "VARNAME" UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME DISPLAY "VALUE" UPON ENVIRONMENT-VALUE SET ENVIRONMENT "VARNAME" TO "VALUE"
SET program-pointer-1 TO ENTRY { literal-1 }
~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ { identifier-1 }
The SET Program-Pointer statement allows you to retrieve the address of a procedure division code module — specifically the PROGRAM-ID, FUNCTION-ID or an entry-point established via the ENTRY statement (see ENTRY).
USAGE (see USAGE) of program-pointer-1 must be PROGRAM-POINTER.
PROGRAM-ID of a subroutine or FUNCTION-ID of a user-defined function) or an alternate entry-point defined via an ENTRY statement within a subprogram.
PROGRAM-POINTERs at work, see the discussions of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) and CBL_EXIT_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_EXIT_PROC).
SET [ ADDRESS OF ] { pointer-name-1 }...
~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~ { identifier-1 }
TO [ ADDRESS OF ] { pointer-name-2 }
~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~ { identifier-2 }
The SET ADDRESS statement can be used to work with the addresses of data items rather than their contents.
ADDRESS OF clause is used before the TO you will be using this statement to alter the address of a linkage section or BASED (see BASED) data item. Without that clause you will be assigning an address to one or more data items whose USAGE (see USAGE) is POINTER.
ADDRESS OF clause is used after the TO, this statement will be identifying the address of identifier-2 as the address to be assigned to identifier-1 or stored in pointer-name-1.
ADDRESS OF clause is absent after the TO, the contents of pointer-name-2 will serve as the address to be assigned.
SET index-name-1 TO { literal-1 }
~~~ ~~ { identifier-2 }
This statement assigns a value to a USAGE INDEX data item.
USAGE (see USAGE) of index-name-1 should be INDEX, or index-name-1 must be identified in a table INDEXED BY clause.
SET identifier-1 { UP } BY [ LENGTH OF ] { literal-1 }
~~~ { ~~ } ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~ { identifier-2 }
{ DOWN }
~~~~
Use this statement to increment or decrement the value of an index or pointer by a specified amount.
USAGE (see USAGE) of identifier-1 must be INDEX, POINTER or PROGRAM-POINTER.
USAGE INDEX data item is to increment its value UP or DOWN by 1, since an index is usually being used to sequentially walk through the elements of a table.
SET condition-name-1... TO { TRUE }
~~~ ~~ { ~~~~ }
{ FALSE }
~~~~~
The SET Condition Name statement provides one method of specifying the TRUE / FALSE value of a level-88 condition name.
TRUE or FALSE value, you will actually be assigning a value to the parent data item(s) to which the condition name data item(s) is(are) subordinate to.
TRUE, the value assigned to each parent data item will be the first value specified on the condition name’s VALUE clause.
FALSE, the value assigned to each parent data item will be the value specified for the FALSE clause of the condition name’s definition; if any condition-name-1 occurrence lacks a FALSE clause, the SET statement will be rejected by the compiler.
SET mnemonic-name-1... TO { ON }
~~~ ~~ { ~~ }
{ OFF }
~~~
This form of the SET statement is used to turn switches on or off.
SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph.
IF statement (see IF) and a Switch-Status Condition. See Switch-Status Conditions, for more information.
SET identifier-1 ATTRIBUTE { { BELL } { ON }...
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~ } { ~~ }
{ BLINK } { OFF }
{ ~~~~~ } ~~~
{ HIGHLIGHT }
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ LEFTLINE }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ LOWLIGHT }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ OVERLINE }
{ ~~~~~~~~ }
{ REVERSE-VIDEO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ UNDERLINE }
~~~~~~~~~
The SET ATTRIBUTE statement may be used to modify one or more attributes of a screen section data item at run-time.
SET LAST EXCEPTION TO { OFF }
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~
The SET LAST EXCEPTION statement will set the last program exception status to indicate no exception.
SORT sort-file-1
~~~~
{ ON { ASCENDING } KEY identifier-1... }...
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ DESCENDING }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER ]
~~~~~~~~~~
[ COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
{ INPUT PROCEDURE IS procedure-name-1 }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ [ THRU|THROUGH procedure-name-2 ] }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ USING file-name-1... }
~~~~~
{ OUTPUT PROCEDURE IS procedure-name-3 }
{ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ [ THRU|THROUGH procedure-name-4 ] }
{ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ }
{ GIVING file-name-2... }
~~~~~~
The
DUPLICATES clause is syntactically recognized but is otherwise non-functional.
This format of the SORT statement is designed to sort large volumes of data according to one or more key fields.
IN, IS, KEY, ON, ORDER, SEQUENCE and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
THRU and THROUGH are interchangeable.
WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER clause is specified, even if it isn’t.
While any COBOL implementation’s sort or merge facilities guarantee that records with duplicate key values will be in proper sequence with regard to other records with different key values, they generally make no promises as to the resulting relative sequence of records having duplicate key values with one another.
Some COBOL implementations provide this optional clause to force their sort and merge facilities to retain duplicate key-value records in their original input sequence, relative to one another.
SORT statement must be defined using a sort description (SD (see File/Sort-Description)). This file is referred to in the remainder of this discussion as the sort work file.
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) or ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL) files. These files must be defined using a file description (FD (see File/Sort-Description)). The same file(s) may be used for file-name-1 and file-name-2.
USING clause (done automatically by the sort) or by utilizing an input procedure.
USING is specified, none of the file-name-1 files may be open at the time the SORT statement is executed.
INPUT PROCEDURE clause will be invoked as if by a procedural PERFORM statement (see Procedural PERFORM) with no VARYING, TIMES or UNTIL options specified. Records will be loaded into the sort work file — one at a time — within the input procedure using the RELEASE statement (see RELEASE). This, by the way, is how you could sort the contents of relative or indexed files.
A GO TO statement (see GO TO) that transfers control out of the input procedure will terminate the SORT statement but allows the program to continue executing from the point where the GO TO statement transferred control to. Once an input procedure has been “aborted” using a GO TO it cannot be resumed, and the contents of the sort work file are lost. You may, however, re-execute the SORT statement itself.3
An input procedure should be terminated in the same way a procedural PERFORM statement would be.
Neither a another file-based SORT statement nor a MERGE statement may be executed within the input procedure unless those statements utilize a different sort or merge work file.
COB_SORT_MEMORY run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) that you may use to allocate more or less memory to the sorting process.
KEY specification(s) on the SORT statement according to the COLLATING SEQUENCE specified on the SORT (if any) or — if none was defined — the PROGRAM COLLATING SEQUENCE (see OBJECT-COMPUTER). Keys may be any supported data type and USAGE (see USAGE) except for level-78 or level-88 data items.
SORT Sort-File
ASCENDING KEY Transaction-Date
ASCENDING KEY Account-Number
DESCENDING KEY Transaction-Amount
The effect of this statement will be to sort all transactions into ascending order of the date the transaction took place (oldest first, newest last). Unless the business running this program is going out of business, there are most-likely many transactions for any given date. Therefore, within each grouping of transactions all with the same date, transactions will be sub-sorted into ascending sequence of the account number the transactions apply to. Since it’s quite possible there might be multiple transactions for an account on any given date, a third level sub-sort will arrange all transactions for the same account on the same date into descending sequence of the actual amount of the transaction (largest first, smallest last). If two or more transactions of $100.00 were recorded for account #12345 on the 31st of August 2009, those transactions will be retained in the order in which they were loaded into the sort work file.
TMPDIR run-time environment variable,
TMP run-time environment variable or
TEMP run-time environment variable run-time environment variables (see Run Time Environment Variables) (checked for existence in that sequence). These disk files will be automatically purged upon SORT termination or program execution termination (normal or otherwise).
GIVING clause was specified. None of the file-name-2 files can be open at the time the sort is executed.
OUTPUT PROCEDURE clause will be invoked as if by a procedural PERFORM statement (see Procedural PERFORM) with no VARYING, TIMES or UNTIL options specified. Records will be retrieved from the sort work file — one at a time — within the output procedure using the RETURN statement (see RETURN).
A GO TO statement (see GO TO) that transfers control out of the output procedure will terminate the SORT statement but allows the program to continue executing from the point where the GO TO statement transferred control to. Once an output procedure has been “aborted” using a GO TO it cannot be resumed, and the contents of the sort work file are lost. You may, however, re-execute the SORT statement itself. USING A GO TO statement4
An output procedure should be terminated in the same way a procedural PERFORM statement would be.
Neither a another file-based SORT statement nor a MERGE statement may be executed within the output procedure unless those statements utilize a different sort or merge work file.
SORT table-name-1
~~~~
{ ON { ASCENDING } KEY identifier-1... }...
{ ~~~~~~~~~ }
{ DESCENDING }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER ]
~~~~~~~~~~
[ COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~
The
DUPLICATES clause is syntactically recognized but is otherwise non-functional.
This format of the SORT statement sorts relatively small quantities of data — namely data contained in a data division table — according to one or more key fields.
IN, IS, KEY, ON, ORDER, SEQUENCE and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER clause is specified, even if it isn’t.
While any COBOL implementation’s sort or merge facilities guarantee that records with duplicate key values will be in proper sequence with regard to other records with different key values, they generally make no promises as to the resulting relative sequence of records having duplicate key values with one another.
Some COBOL implementations provide this optional clause to force their sort and merge facilities to retain duplicate key-value records in their original input sequence, relative to one another.
KEY specification(s) on the SORT statement, according to the COLLATING SEQUENCE specified on the SORT (if any) or — if none was defined — the PROGRAM COLLATING SEQUENCE (see OBJECT-COMPUTER). Keys may be any supported data type and USAGE (see USAGE) except for level-78 or level-88 data items.
SEARCH ALL statement (see SEARCH ALL), care must be taken that the KEY specifications on the SORT agree with those in the table’s definition.
KEY clauses is optional, currently, a table sort with no KEY specification(s) made on the SORT statement is unsupported by GnuCOBOL and will be rejected by the compiler.
START file-name-1
~~~~~
[ { FIRST } ]
{ ~~~~~ }
{ LAST }
{ ~~~~ }
{ KEY { IS EQUAL TO | IS = | EQUALS } identifier-1 }
{ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ }
{ IS GREATER THAN | IS > }
{ ~~~~~~~ }
{ IS GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO | IS >= }
{ ~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ }
{ IS NOT LESS THAN }
{ ~~~ ~~~~ }
{ IS LESS THAN | IS < }
{ ~~~~ }
{ IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO | IS <= }
{ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~ }
{ IS NOT GREATER THAN }
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~
[ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ END-START ]
~~~~~~~~~
The START statement defines the logical starting point within a relative or indexed file for subsequent sequential read operations. It positions an internal logical record pointer to a particular record in the file, but does not actually transfer any of that record’s data into the record buffer.
IS, KEY, THAN and TO are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ORGANIZATION RELATIVE (see ORGANIZATION RELATIVE) or ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) file that must have been defined with an ACCESS MODE DYNAMIC or ACCESS MODE SEQUENTIAL in its SELECT statement (see SELECT).
INPUT or I-O (see File OPEN Modes) mode.
RELATIVE KEY of the file.
RECORD KEY of the file or any of the ALTERNATE RECORD KEY fields for the file.
FIRST, LAST or KEY clause is specified, KEY IS EQUAL TO xxx will be assumed, where xxx is the defined RELATIVE KEY of (if file-name-1 is a relative file) or the defined RECORD KEY (if file-name-1 is an indexed file).
START statement, the internal logical record pointer into the file-name-1 data will be positioned to the record which satisfied the actual or implied FIRST, LAST or KEY clause specification, as follows:
FIRSTthe logical record pointer will point to the first record in the file.
LASTthe logical record pointer will point to the last record in the file.
KEY(specified or implied), and the relation used is
EQUAL TO, GREATER THAN or GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO (or equivalent)the logical record pointer will be specified to the first record satisfying the relation condition; to identify this record. The file’s contents are searched in a first-to-last (in sequence of the key implied by the KEY clause), provided the relation is
LESS THAN, LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO or NOT GREATER THAN (or equivalent)the logical record pointer will be specified to the last record satisfying the relation condition; to identify this record. The file’s contents are searched in a last-to-first (in sequence of the key implied by the KEY clause)
The next sequential READ statement will read the record that is pointed to by the logical record pointer.
INVALID KEY and NOT INVALID KEY clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, by detecting non-zero (typically 23 = key not found = record not found) and 00 file status codes, respectively. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
STOP { RUN [ { RETURNING|GIVING { literal-1 } } ] }
~~~~ { ~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } } }
{ { } }
{ { WITH { ERROR } STATUS [ { literal-2 } ] } }
{ { { ~~~~~ } { identifier-2 } } }
{ { { NORMAL } } }
{ ~~~~~~ }
{ literal-3 }
The STOP statement suspends program execution. Some options will allow program execution to resume while others return control to the operating system.
STATUS and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
RETURNING and
GIVING are interchangeable.
RUN clause halts the program without displaying any special message to that effect.
SYSOUT/STDOUT device, waits for the user to press the Enter key and then — once the key has been pressed — allows the program to continue execution.
RETURNING clause provides the opportunity to return a numeric value to the operating system (an exit status). The manner in which the exit status may be interrogated by the operating system varies, but Windows can use %ERRORLEVEL% to query the exit status while Unix shells such as sh, bash and ksh can query the exit status as $?. Other Unix shells may have different ways to access return code values.
STATUS clause provides another means of returning an exit status. Using the STATUS clause is functionally equivalent to using the RETURNING clause.
STATUS clause without a literal-2 or identifier-2 will return an exit status of 0 if the
NORMAL keyword is used or a 1 if
ERROR was specified.
RETURNING or STATUS clause is specified. In the absence of the use of these clauses, the value in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) at the time the
STOP statement is executed will be used as the exit status.
CBL_EXIT_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_EXIT_PROC)) will be executed by STOP RUN, but not by STOP literal-3.
STOP RUN RETURNING 16
MOVE 16 TO RETURN-CODE STOP RUN
STOP RUN WITH ERROR STATUS 16
STRING
~~~~~~
{ { literal-1 } [ DELIMITED BY { SIZE } ] }...
{ identifier-1 } ~~~~~~~~~ { ~~~~ }
{ literal-2 }
{ identifier-2 }
INTO identifier-3
~~~~
[ WITH POINTER identifier-4 ]
~~~~~~~
[ ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ END-STRING ]
~~~~~~~~~~
The STRING statement is used to concatenate all or a part of one or more strings together, forming a new string.
BY, ON and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
USAGE (see USAGE) of DISPLAY. Any of the identifiers may be group items.
POINTER data item — identifier-4 — must be a non-edited elementary integer numeric data item with a value greater than zero.
STRING statement’s processing is based upon a
current character pointer. The initial value of the current character pointer will be the value of identifier-4 at the time the STRING statement began execution. If no POINTER clause is coded, a value of 1 (meaning “the 1st character position”) will be assumed for the current character pointer’s initial value.
DELIMITED BY clause specifies how much of each source item will be copied into identifier-3. DELIMITED BY SIZE (the default if no DELIMITED BY clause is specified) causes the entire contents of the source item to be copied into identifier-3.
DELIMITED BY literal-2 or DELIMITED BY identifier-2 causes only the contents of the source item up to but not including the character sequence specified by the literal or identifier to be copied.
STRING processing will cease when one of the following occurs:
STRING statement nor will it be space-filled should the total number of sending item characters copied into it be less than its size. You may explicitly initialize identifier-3 yourself via the INITIALIZE (see INITIALIZE) or MOVE (see MOVE) statements before executing the STRING if you wish.
ON OVERFLOW and NOT ON OVERFLOW clauses may be used to detect and react to the occurrence or not, respectively, of an overflow condition. See ON OVERFLOW + NOT ON OVERFLOW, for additional information.
SUBTRACT { literal-1 }... FROM { identifier-2
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-SUBTRACT ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This format of the SUBTRACT statement generates the arithmetic sum of all arguments that appear before the FROM (identifier-1 or literal-1) and subtracts that sum from each identifier-2.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
SUBTRACT { literal-1 }... FROM identifier-2
~~~~~~~~ { identifier-1 } ~~~~
GIVING { identifier-3
~~~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ] }...
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-SUBTRACT ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The SUBTRACT GIVING statement generates the arithmetic sum of all arguments that appear before the FROM (identifier-1 or literal-1), subtracts that sum from the contents of identifier-2 and then replaces the contents of the identifiers listed after the
GIVING (identifier-3) with that result.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING identifier-1 FROM identifier-2
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~
[ ROUNDED [ MODE IS { AWAY-FROM-ZERO } ] ]
~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-EVEN }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ PROHIBITED }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-GREATER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TOWARD-LESSER }
{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ }
{ TRUNCATION }
~~~~~~~~~~
[ ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~ ~~~~~
[ NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~
[ END-SUBTRACT ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING statement generates code equivalent to individual SUBTRACT FROM statements for corresponding matches of data items found subordinate to the two identifiers.
IS and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
ROUNDED (see ROUNDED) clause available to each identifier-2 will control how non-integer results will be saved.
ON SIZE ERROR and NOT ON SIZE ERROR clauses may be used to detect and react to the failure or success, respectively, of an attempt to perform a calculation. In this case, failure is defined as being an identifier-2 with an insufficient number of digit positions available to the left of any implied decimal point. See ON SIZE ERROR + NOT ON SIZE ERROR, for additional information.
SUPPRESS PRINTING ~~~~~~~~
The SUPPRESS statement causes the presentation of a report group to be suppressed.
PRINTING is optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of this word has no effect upon the program.
USE BEFORE REPORTING procedure (in DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES)).
SUPPRESS only prevents the presentation of the report group within whose USE BEFORE REPORTING procedure the statement occurs.
LINE (see LINE) clauses within the report group in question.
NEXT GROUP (see NEXT GROUP) clause (if any) within the report group in question.
LINE-COUNTER special register (see Special Registers).
PAGE-COUNTER special register.
TERMINATE report-name-1... ~~~~~~~~~
The TERMINATE statement causes the processing of the specified report(s) to be completed.
RD (see REPORT SECTION) defined for it.
INITIATE (see INITIATE)) and cannot yet have been terminated.
TERMINATE statement will present each CONTROL FOOTING (if any), in reverse sequence of the control hierarchy, starting with the most minor up to FINAL (if any). During the presentation of these groups and the processing of any USE BEFORE REPORTING procedures for those groups, the prior set of control data item values will be available, as though a control break had been detected at the most major control data name.
CONTROL FOOTING groups, any necessary PAGE FOOTING and PAGE HEADING groups will be presented as well.
REPORT FOOTING group, if any, will be presented.
INITIATE is followed by a TERMINATE with no intervening GENERATE (see GENERATE) statements (all pertaining to the same report, of course), no report groups will be presented to the output file.
TRANSFORM identifier-1 FROM { literal-1 } TO { literal-2 }
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ { identifier-2 } ~~ { identifier-3 }
The TRANSFORM statement scans a data item performing a series of mono-alphabetic substitutions, defined by the arguments before and after the TO clause.
USAGE (see USAGE) of DISPLAY are accepted, but will generate warning messages from the compiler.
TRANSFORM statement will replace characters within identifier-1 that are found in the string specified before the TO keyword with the corresponding characters from the string specified after the TO keyword.
TRANSFORM statement was made obsolete in the 1985 standard of COBOL, having been replaced by the CONVERTING clause of the INSPECT statement (see INSPECT). New programs should be coded to use INSPECT CONVERTING rather than TRANSFORM.
UNLOCK filename-1 RECORD|RECORDS ~~~~~~
This statement synchronizes any as-yet unwritten file I/O buffers to the specified file (if any) and releases any record locks held for records belonging to file-name-1.
RECORD and RECORDS are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
UNSTRING identifier-1
~~~~~~~~
DELIMITED BY { [ ALL ] literal-1 } [ OR { [ ALL ] literal-2 } ]...
~~~~~~~~~ { ~~~ } ~~ { ~~~ }
{ identifier-2 } { identifier-3 }
INTO { identifier-4
~~~~ [ DELIMITER IN identifier-5 ] [ COUNT IN identifier-6 ] }...
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~
[ WITH POINTER identifier-7 ]
~~~~~~~
[ TALLYING IN identifier-8 ]
~~~~~~~~
[ ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~
[ NOT ON OVERFLOW imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~
[ END-UNSTRING ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The UNSTRING statement parses a string, extracting any number of sub strings from it.
BY, IN and ON are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
USAGE (see USAGE) of DISPLAY. Any of those identifiers may be group items.
UNSTRING statement begins execution, identifier-7 must have a value greater than 0.
UNSTRING statement’s processing is based upon a current character pointer, the initial value of which will be the value of identifier-7 at the time the UNSTRING statement began execution. If no POINTER clause is coded, a value of 1 (meaning “the 1st character position”) will be assumed for the current character pointer’s initial value.
DELIMITED BY clause as inter-sub string separators.
ALL option allows a delimiter sequence to be an arbitrarily long sequence of occurrences of the delimiter literal whereas its absence treats each occurrence as a separate delimiter. When multiple delimiters are specified, they will be looked for in the source string in the sequence in which they are coded.
JUSTIFIED (see JUSTIFIED) clause on the destination field.
DELIMITER clause. If a DELIMITER clause is specified, identifier-5 will have the delimiter character string used to identify the sub string for the destination field moved into it. If a destination field was not altered (because an insufficient number of sub strings were identified), identifier-5 for that destination field will also be unchanged.
COUNT clause. If a COUNT clause is specified, identifier-6 will have the size of the sub string (in characters) for the destination field moved into it. If a destination field was not altered (because an insufficient number of sub strings were identified), identifier-6 for that destination field will also be unchanged.
TALLYING clause is coded, identifier-8 will be incremented by 1 each time a destination field is populated.
UNSTRING statement. You need to do that yourself via a MOVE (see MOVE) or INITIALIZE statement (see INITIALIZE).
UNSTRING processing will cease when one of the following occurs:
DELIMITER or COUNT identifiers) will be changed.
ON OVERFLOW and NOT ON OVERFLOW clauses may be used to detect and react to the occurrence or not, respectively, of an overflow condition. See ON OVERFLOW + NOT ON OVERFLOW, for additional information.
The following sample program illustrates the UNSTRING statement statement.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMOUNSTRING.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Full-Name PIC X(40).
01 Parsed-Info.
05 Last-Name PIC X(15).
05 First-Name PIC X(15).
05 MI PIC X(1).
05 Delim-LN PIC X(1).
05 Delim-FN PIC X(1).
05 Delim-MI PIC X(1).
05 Count-LN BINARY-CHAR.
05 Count-FN BINARY-CHAR.
05 Count-MI BINARY-CHAR.
05 Tallying-Ctr BINARY-CHAR.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
P1. PERFORM UNTIL EXIT
DISPLAY "Enter Full Name (null quits):"
WITH NO ADVANCING
ACCEPT Full-Name
IF Full-Name = SPACES
EXIT PERFORM
END-IF
INITIALIZE Parsed-Info
UNSTRING Full-Name
DELIMITED BY ", "
OR ","
OR ALL SPACES
INTO Last-Name
DELIMITER IN Delim-LN
COUNT IN Count-LN
First-Name
DELIMITER IN Delim-FN
COUNT IN Count-FN
MI
DELIMITER IN Delim-MI
COUNT IN Count-MI
TALLYING Tallying-Ctr
DISPLAY "First-Name=" First-Name
" Delim='" Delim-FN
"' Count=" Count-FN
DISPLAY "MI =" MI " "
" Delim='" Delim-MI
"' Count=" Count-MI
DISPLAY "Last-Name =" Last-Name
" Delim='" Delim-LN
"' Count=" Count-LN
DISPLAY "Tally= " Tallying-Ctr
END-PERFORM
DISPLAY "Bye!"
STOP RUN .
The following is sample output from the program:
Enter Full Name (null quits):Cutler, Gary L First-Name=Gary Delim=' ' Count=+004 MI =L Delim=' ' Count=+001 Last-Name =Cutler Delim=',' Count=+006 Tally= +003 Enter Full Name (null quits):Snoddgrass,Throckmorton,P First-Name=Throckmorton Delim=',' Count=+012 MI =P Delim=' ' Count=+001 Last-Name =Snoddgrass Delim=',' Count=+010 Tally= +003 Enter Full Name (null quits):Munster Herman First-Name=Herman Delim=' ' Count=+006 MI = Delim=' ' Count=+000 Last-Name =Munster Delim=' ' Count=+007 Tally= +002 Enter Full Name (null quits): Bye!
WRITE record-name-1
~~~~~
[ FROM { literal-1 } ]
~~~~ { identifier-1 }
[ WITH [ NO ] LOCK ]
~~ ~~~~
[ { BEFORE } ADVANCING { { literal-2 } LINE|LINES } ]
{ ~~~~~~ } { { identifier-2 }
{ AFTER } { PAGE }
~~~~~ { ~~~~ }
{ mnemonic-name-1 }
[ AT END-OF-PAGE|EOP imperative-statement-1 ]
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
[ NOT AT END-OF-PAGE|EOP imperative-statement-2 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~
[ INVALID KEY imperative-statement-3 ]
~~~~~~~
[ NOT INVALID KEY imperative-statement-4 ]
~~~ ~~~~~~~
[ END-WRITE ]
~~~~~~~~~
The WRITE statement writes a new record to an open file.
ADVANCING, AT, KEY, LINE, LINES and WITH are optional and may be omitted. The presence or absence of these words has no effect upon the program.
END-OF-PAGE and EOP are interchangeable.
FD (see File/Sort-Description)) of a file that is currently open for OUTPUT (see File OPEN Modes), EXTEND or I-O.
FROM clause will cause literal-1 or identifier-1 to be automatically moved into record-name-1 prior to writing record-name-1’s contents to the appropriate file. If this clause is not specified, it is the programmer’s responsibility to populate record-name-1 with the desired data prior to executing the WRITE.
LOCK options may be used to manually control access to the just-written record by other programs while this program is running. See Record Locking, to review the various record locking behaviour.
INVALID KEY and NOT INVALID KEY clauses may be used when writing to relative or indexed files to detect and react to the failure (non-zero file status code) or success (00 file status code), respectively, of the statement. See File Status Codes, for additional information.
WRITE is used against an ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) file, with or without the LINE ADVANCING (see LINE ADVANCING) option, an end-of-record delimiter character sequence will be written to the file to signify where one record ends and the next record begins. This delimiter sequence will be either of the following:
X'0D0A') if you are running a MinGW or native Windows build of GnuCOBOL
X'0A') if you are running a Cygwin, Linux, Unix or OSX build of GnuCOBOL
ADVANCING clause:
ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL will either be rejected outright by the compiler (relative or indexed files) or may introduce unwanted characters into the file (ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL)).
ADVANCING clause is specified on a WRITE to a line-advancing file, AFTER ADVANCING 1 LINE will be assumed; on other than line-advancing files, BEFORE ADVANCING 1 LINE will be assumed.
BEFORE ADVANCING is used (or implied), the record is written to the file before the ADVANCING action writes line-terminator characters to the file.
AFTER ADVANCING is used (or implied), the ADVANCING action writes line-terminator characters to the file and then the record data is written to the file.
ADVANCING n LINES clause will introduce the specified number of line-terminator character sequences into the file either before the written record (AFTER ADVANCING) or after the written record (BEFORE ADVANCING).
LINAGE (see File/Sort-Description) clause is absent from the file’s FD:
ADVANCING PAGE clause will introduce an ASCII formfeed character into the file either before the written record (AFTER PAGE) or after the written record (BEFORE PAGE).
FD:
ADVANCING PAGE clause will introduce the appropriate number of line-terminator character sequences into the file either before the written record (AFTER ADVANCING) or after the written record (BEFORE ADVANCING) so as to force the printer to automatically advance to a new sheet of paper when the file prints. No formfeed characters will be generated when LINAGE is specified — instead, it is assumed that the printer to which the report will be printed will be loaded with special forms that conform to the specifications defined by the LINAGE clause.
LINAGE-COUNTER special register (see Special Registers) and the
END-OF-PAGE clause to deal with page formatting issues.
AT END-OF-PAGE clause will be triggered, thus executing imperative-statement-1 (see Imperative Statement), if the WRITE statement introduces a data line or line-feed character into the file at a line position within the Page Footer area defined by the LINAGE clause. The NOT AT END-OF-PAGE clause will be triggered (thus executing imperative-statement-2) if no end-of-page condition occurred during the WRITE.
GnuCOBOL supports a wide variety of “intrinsic functions” that may be used anywhere in the PROCEDURE DIVISION where a literal is allowed. For example:
MOVE FUNCTION LENGTH(Employee-Last-Name) TO Employee-LN-Len
Note how the word FUNCTION is part of the syntax when you use an intrinsic function. You can use intrinsic functions without having to include the reserved word FUNCTION via settings in the REPOSITORY (see REPOSITORY) paragraph. You may accomplish the same thing by specifying the
-fintrinsics switch to the GnuCOBOL compiler when you compile your programs.
User-written functions (see Subprogram Types) never require the FUNCTION keyword when they are executed, because each user-written function a program uses must be included in that program’s REPOSITORY paragraph, which therefore makes the FUNCTION keyword optional.
The following intrinsic functions, known to other “dialects” of COBOL, are defined to GnuCOBOL as reserved words but are not otherwise implemented currently. Any attempts to use these functions will result in a compile-time error message. However they are described at the end of this chapter.
BOOLEAN-OF-INTEGER CHAR-NATIONAL DISPLAY-OF EXCEPTION-FILE-N EXCEPTION-LOCATION-N INTEGER-OF-BOOLEAN NATIONAL-OF STANDARD-COMPARE
The supported intrinsic functions are listed in the following sections, along with their syntax and usage notes.
ABS(number) ~~~
This function determines and returns the absolute value of number (a numeric literal or data item) supplied as an argument.
Note that ABSOLUTE-VALUE has an alias for this function.
ACOS(cosine) ~~~~
The ACOS function determines and returns the trigonometric arc-cosine, or inverse cosine, of cosine value (a numeric literal or data item) supplied as an argument.
The result will be an angle, expressed in radians. You may convert this to an angle measured in degrees, as follows:
COMPUTE degrees = ( radians * 180 ) / FUNCTION PI
ANNUITY(interest-rate, number-of-periods) ~~~~~~~
This function returns a numeric value approximating the ratio of an annuity paid at interest-rate (numeric data item or literal) for each of number-of-periods (numeric data items or literals).
interest-rate is the rate of interest paid at each payment. If you only have an annual interest rate and you wish to compute monthly annuity payments, divide the annual interest rate by 12 and use that value for interest-rate.
Multiply the result of this function times the desired principal amount to determine the amount of each period’s payment.
A note for the financially challenged: an annuity is basically a reverse loan; an accountant would take the result of this function multiplied by -1 times the principal amount to compute a loan payment you are making.
ASIN(sine) ~~~~
The ASIN function determines and returns the trigonometric arc-sine, or inverse sine, of sine value (a numeric literal or data item) supplied as an argument.
The result will be an angle, expressed in radians. You may convert this to an angle measured in degrees, as follows:
COMPUTE degrees = ( radians * 180 ) / FUNCTION PI
ATAN(tangent) ~~~~
Use this function to determine and return the trigonometric arc-tangent, or inverse tangent, of tangent value (a numeric literal or data item) supplied as an argument.
The result will be an angle, expressed in radians. You may convert this to an angle measured in degrees, as follows:
COMPUTE degrees = ( radians * 180 ) / FUNCTION PI
BYTE-LENGTH(string) ~~~~~~~~~~~
BYTE-LENGTH returns the length — in bytes — of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal). This intrinsic function is identical to the LENGTH-AN (see LENGTH-AN) function. Note that the value returned by this function is not necessarily the number of characters comprising string, but rather the number of actual bytes required to store it.
For example, if string is encoded using a double-byte character set such as Unicode UTF-16 (where each character is represented by 16 bits of storage, not the 8-bits inherent to character sets like ASCII or EBCDIC), then calling this function with a string argument whose PICTURE (see PICTURE) is X(4) would return a value of 8 rather than the value 4.
Contrast this with the LENGTH (see LENGTH) function.
CHAR(integer) ~~~~
This function returns the character in the ordinal position specified by integer (a numeric integer literal or data item with a value of 1 or greater) from the COLLATING SEQUENCE (see OBJECT-COMPUTER) being used by the program.
For example, if the program is using the (default) ASCII character set, CHAR(34) returns the 34th character in the ASCII character set — an exclamation-point (‘!’). If you are using this function to convert a numeric value to its corresponding ASCII character, you must use an argument value one greater than the numeric value.
If an argument whose value is less than 1 or greater than 256 is specified, the character in the program collating sequence corresponding to a value of all zero bits is returned.
The following code is an alternative approach when you just wish to convert a number to its ASCII equivalent:
01 Char-Value.
05 Numeric-Value USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
…
MOVE numeric-character-value TO Numeric-Value
The Char-Value item now has the corresponding ASCII character value.
COMBINED-DATETIME(days, seconds) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns a 12-digit numeric result, the first seven digits of which are the integer value of days argument (a numeric data item or literal) and the last five of which are the integer value of seconds argument (also a numeric data item or literal).
If days is less than 1 or greater than 3,067,671, or if seconds is less than 1 or greater than 86,400, a value of 0 is returned and a runtime error will result.
CONCATENATE(string-1 [, string-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~~~~~
This function concatenates the string-1, string-2, … (group items, USAGE DISPLAY elementary items and/or alphanumeric literals) together into a single string result.
If a numeric literal or PIC 9 identifier is specified as an argument, decimal points, if any, will be removed and negative signs in PIC S9 fields or numeric literals will be inserted as defined by the SIGN IS (see SIGN IS) clause (or absence thereof) of the field. Numeric literals are processed as if SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE were in effect.
COS(angle) ~~~
The COS function determines and returns the trigonometric cosine of angle (a numeric literal or data item) supplied as an argument.
angle is assumed to be a value expressed in radians. If you need to determine the cosine of an angle measured in degrees, you first need to convert that angle to radians as follows:
COMPUTE radians = ( degrees * FUNCTION PI) / 180
CURRENCY-SYMBOL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The CURRENCY-SYMBOL function returns the currency symbol character currently in effect for the locale under which your program is running. On UNIX systems, your locale is established via the
LANG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) environment variable. On Windows, the Control Panel’s "Regional and Language Options" define the locale.
Changing the currency symbol via the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph’s CURRENCY SYMBOL setting will not affect the value returned by this function.
CURRENT-DATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Returns the current date and time as the following 21-character structure:
01 CURRENT-DATE-AND-TIME.
05 CDT-Year PIC 9(4).
05 CDT-Month PIC 9(2). *> 01-12
05 CDT-Day PIC 9(2). *> 01-31
05 CDT-Hour PIC 9(2). *> 00-23
05 CDT-Minutes PIC 9(2). *> 00-59
05 CDT-Seconds PIC 9(2). *> 00-59
05 CDT-Hundredths-Of-Secs PIC 9(2). *> 00-99
05 CDT-GMT-Diff-Hours PIC S9(2)
SIGN LEADING SEPARATE.
05 CDT-GMT-Diff-Minutes PIC 9(2). *> 00 or 30
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
DATE-OF-INTEGER(integer) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns a numeric calendar date in yyyymmdd (i.e. Gregorian) format. The date is determined by adding the number of days specified as integer (a numeric integer data item or literal) to the date December 31, 1600. For example, DATE-OF-INTEGER(1) returns 16010101 while DATE-OF-INTEGER(150000) returns 20110908.
A value less than 1 or greater than 3067671 (9999/12/31) will return a result of 0.
DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(yymmdd [, yy-cutoff [, yy-execution-time ]]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can use this function to convert the six-digit Gregorian date specified as yymmdd (a numeric integer data item or literal) to an eight-digit format (yyyymmdd).
The optional yy-cutoff (a numeric integer data item or literal) argument is the year cutoff used to delineate centuries; if the year component of the date meets or exceeds this cutoff value, the result will be 19yymmdd; if the year component of the date is less than the cutoff value, the result will be 20yymmdd. The default cutoff value if no second argument is given will be 50.
The optional yy-execution-time argument (a numeric integer data item or literal) The default execution time value if no third argument is given will be now equivalent to specifying (FUNCTION NUMVAL (FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE (1:4))).
DAY-OF-INTEGER(integer) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns a calendar date in yyyyddd (i.e. Julian) format. The date is determined by adding the number of days specified as integer (a numeric integer data item or literal) to December 31, 1600. For example, DAY-OF-INTEGER(1) returns 1601001 while DAY-OF-INTEGER(250000) returns 2011251.
A value less than 1 or greater than 3067671 (9999/12/31) will return a result of 0.
DAY-TO-YYYYDDD(yyddd [, yy-cutoff [, yy-execution-time ]]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can use this function to convert the five-digit Julian date specified as yyddd (a numeric integer data item or literal) to a seven-digit numeric Julian format (yyyyddd).
The optional yy-cutoff argument (a numeric integer data item or literal) is the year cutoff used to delineate centuries; if the year component of the date meets or exceeds this cutoff value, the result will be 19yyddd; if the year component of the date is less than the cutoff, the result will be 20yyddd. The default cutoff value if no second argument is given will be 50.
The optional yy-execution-time argument (a numeric integer data item or literal) The default execution time value if no third argument is given will be now equivalent to specifying (FUNCTION NUMVAL (FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE (1:4))).
E ~
This function returns the mathematical constant E (the base of natural logarithms). The maximum precision with which this value may be returned is 2.7182818284590452353602874713526625.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
EXCEPTION-FILE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns I/O exception information from the most-recently executed input or output statement. The information is returned as a 34-character string, where the first two characters are the two-digit file status value (see File Status Codes) and the remaining 32 are the file-name-1 specification from the file’s SELECT (see SELECT) statement.
The name returned after the file status information will be returned only if the returned file status value is not 00.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
EXCEPTION-LOCATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns exception information from the most-recently failing statement. The information is returned to a 1023 character string in one of the following formats, depending on the nature of the failure:
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The program must be compiled with the -debug switch, -ftraceall switch or -g switch for this function to return any meaningful information.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the most-recent COBOL statement that generated an exception condition.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The program must be compiled with the -debug switch, -ftraceall switch or -g switch for this function to return any meaningful information.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
EXCEPTION-STATUS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the error type (a text string — see column 2 of the upcoming table for the possible values) from the most-recent COBOL statement that generated an exception condition.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
The following are the error type strings, and their corresponding exception codes and descriptions.
| Code | Error Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
0101 | EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION | Function argument error |
0202 | EC-BOUND-ODO | OCCURS … DEPENDING ON data item out of bounds |
0204 | EC-BOUND-PTR | Data-pointer contains an address that is out of bounds |
0205 | EC-BOUND-REF-MOD | Reference modifier out of bounds |
0207 | EC-BOUND-SUBSCRIPT | Subscript out of bounds |
0303 | EC-DATA-INCOMPATIBLE | Incompatible data exception |
0500 | EC-I-O | input-output exception |
0501 | EC-I-O-AT-END | I-O status 1x |
0502 | EC-I-O-EOP | An end of page condition occurred |
0504 | EC-I-O-FILE-SHARING | I-O status 6x |
0505 | EC-I-O-IMP | I-O status 9x |
0506 | EC-I-O-INVALID-KEY | I-O status 2x |
0508 | EC-I-O-LOGIC-ERROR | I-O status 4x |
0509 | EC-I-O-PERMANENT-ERROR | I-O status 3x |
050A | EC-I-O-RECORD-OPERATION | I-O status 5x |
0601 | EC-IMP-ACCEPT | Implementation-defined accept condition |
0602 | EC-IMP-DISPLAY | Implementation-defined display condition |
0A00 | EC-OVERFLOW | Overflow condition |
0A02 | EC-OVERFLOW-STRING | STRING overflow condition |
0A03 | EC-OVERFLOW-UNSTRING | UNSTRING overflow condition |
0B05 | EC-PROGRAM-NOT-FOUND | Called program not found |
0D03 | EC-RANGE-INSPECT-SIZE | Size of replace item in inspect differs |
1000 | EC-SIZE | Size error exception |
1004 | EC-SIZE-OVERFLOW | Arithmetic overflow in calculation |
1005 | EC-SIZE-TRUNCATION | Significant digits truncated in store |
1007 | EC-SIZE-ZERO-DIVIDE | Division by zero |
1202 | EC-STORAGE-NOT-ALLOC | The data-pointer specified in a FREE statement does not identify currently allocated storage |
1203 | EC-STORAGE-NOT-AVAIL | The amount of storage requested by an ALLOCATE statement is not available |
EXP(number) ~~~
Computes and returns the value of the mathematical constant e raised to the power specified by number (a numeric literal or data item).
EXP10(number) ~~~~~
Computes and returns the value of 10 raised to the power specified by number (a numeric literal or data item).
FACTORIAL(number) ~~~~~~~~~
This function computes and returns the factorial value of number (a numeric literal or data item).
FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE ( argument-1 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE returns the current date and time provided by the system at run-time, formatted according to date-and-time-format according to the argument type.
The function argument must be a national or alphanumeric literal and the content, a combined date and time format.
The returned value is formatted to the same form as argument-1.
FORMATTED-DATE ( argument-1, argument-2 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FORMATTED-DATE uses a format to convert a date in integer date form to a date in the requested format. The returned value will be in date format.
argument-1 shall be a national or alphanumeric literal.
argument-2 shall be a value in integer date form.
FORMATTED-DATETIME ( argument-1, argument-2, argument-3, argument-4 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FORMATTED-DATETIME uses a combined time and date form to convert and combine a date in integer form and a numeric time expressed as seconds past midnight in UTC.
argument-1 shall be a national or alphanumeric literal.
argument-2 shall be a value in integer date form.
argument-3 shall be a value in standard numeric time form.
argument-4 is an integer specifying the offset from UTC expressed in minutes. If specified but have a value equal or less than 1439.
Note: The offset value 1439 represents 23 hours 59 minutes which is one minutes less than a day.
argument-4 must not be specified if the time portion in argument-1 is neither a UTC nor an offset format.
The returned value is a representation of the date contained in argument-2 combined with the time contained in argument-3 according to the format in argument-1.
If the format in argument-1 indicates that the returned value is to be expressed in UTC, the time portion of the returned value reflects the adjustment of the value in argument-3 by the offset in argument-4.
If the format in argument-1 indicates that the time is to be returned as an offset from UTC, the value in argument-3 is reflected directly in the time portion of the returned value and the offset in argument-4 is reflected directly in the offset portion of the returned value.
FORMATTED-TIME ( argument-1, argument-2, argument-3 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FORMATTED-TIME converts a value representing seconds past midnight formatted time of day with optional offset.
argument-1 shall be a national or alphanumeric literal.
argument-2 shall be a value in integer time form.
argument-3 is an integer specifying the offset from UTC expressed in minutes. If specified but have a value equal or less than 1439.
Note: The offset value 1439 represents 23 hours 59 minutes which is one minutes less than a day.
argument-3 must not be specified if the time portion in argument-1 is neither a UTC nor an offset format.
Returned value :
Is a representation of the standard numeric time contained in argument-2 according to the format in argument-1.
If the format in argument-1 indicates that the returned value is to be expressed in UTC, the time portion of the returned value reflects the adjustment of the value in argument-2 by the offset in argument-3.
If the format in argument-1 indicates that the time is to be returned as an offset from UTC, the value in argument-2 is reflected directly in the time portion of the returned value and the offset in argument-3 is reflected directly in the offset portion of the returned value.
FRACTION-PART(number) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns that portion of number (a numeric data item or a numeric literal) that occurs to the right of the decimal point. FRACTION-PART(3.1415), for example, returns a value of 0.1415. This function is equivalent to the expression:
number -- FUNCTION INTEGER-PART(number)
HIGHEST-ALGEBRAIC(numeric-identifier) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the highest (i.e. largest or farthest away from 0 in a positive direction if numeric-identifier is signed) value that could possibly be stored in numeric-identifier.
INTEGER(number) ~~~~~~~
The INTEGER function returns the greatest integer value that is less than or equal to number (a numeric literal or data item).
INTEGER-OF-DATE(date) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function converts date (a numeric integer data item or literal) — presumed to be a Gregorian calendar form standard date (YYYYMMDD) — to internal date form (the number of days that have transpired since 1600/12/31).
Once in that form, mathematical operations may be performed against the internal date before it is transformed back into a date using the DATE-OF-INTEGER (see DATE-OF-INTEGER) or DAY-OF-INTEGER (see DAY-OF-INTEGER) function.
INTEGER-OF-DAY(date) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function converts date (a numeric integer data item or literal) — presumed to be a Julian calendar form standard date (YYYYDDD) — to internal date form (the number of days that have transpired since 1600/12/31).
Once in that form, mathematical operations may be performed against the internal date before it is transformed back into a date using the DATE-OF-INTEGER (see DATE-OF-INTEGER) or DAY-OF-INTEGER (see DAY-OF-INTEGER) function.
INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE ( argument-1, argument-2 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE converts a date that is in specified format to integer date form.
argument-1 shall be a national or alphanumeric literal. The content must be either a date format or a combined date and time format.
argument-2 shall be a data item of the same type as argument-1.
If argument-1 is a date format the content of argument-2 shall be a valid date in that format.
If argument-1 is a combined date and time format, the content of argument-2 shall be a valid combined date and time in same format.
INTEGER-PART(number) ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Returns the integer portion of number (a numeric literal or data item).
LENGTH(string) ~~~~~~
Returns the length — in characters — of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal).
The value returned by this function is not the number of bytes of storage occupied by string, but rather the number of actual characters making up the string. For example, if string is encoded using a double-byte character set such as Unicode UTF-16 (where each character is represented by 16 bits of storage, not the 8-bits inherent to character sets like ASCII or EBCDIC), then calling this function with a string argument whose PICTURE is X(4) would return a value of 4 rather than the value 8 (the actual number of bytes of storage occupied by that item).
Contrast this function with the BYTE-LENGTH (see BYTE-LENGTH) and LENGTH-AN (see LENGTH-AN) functions.
LENGTH-AN(string) ~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the length — in bytes of storage — of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal).
This intrinsic function is identical to the BYTE-LENGTH (see BYTE-LENGTH) function.
Note that the value returned by this function is not the number of characters making up the string, but rather the number of actual bytes of storage required to store string. For example, if string is encoded using a double-byte character set such as Unicode UTF-16 (where each character is represented by 16 bits of storage, not the 8-bits inherent to character sets like ASCII or EBCDIC), then calling this function with a string argument whose PICTURE is X(4) would return a value of 8 rather than the value 4.
Contrast this with the LENGTH (see LENGTH) function.
LOCALE-COMPARE(argument-1, argument-2 [ , locale ]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The LOCALE-COMPARE function returns a character indicating the result of comparing argument-1 and argument-2 using a culturally-preferred ordering defined by a locale.
Either or both of the 1st two arguments may be an alphanumeric literal, a group item or an elementary item appropriate to storing alphabetic or alphanumeric data. If the lengths of the two arguments are unequal, the shorter will be assumed to be padded to the right with spaces.
The two arguments will be compared, character by character, against each other until their relationship to each other can be determined. The comparison is made according to the cultural rules in effect for locale name or for the current locale if no locale argument is specified. Once that relationship is determined, a one-character alphanumeric value will be returned as follows:
See LOCALE Names, for a list of typically-available locale names.
LOCALE-DATE(date [, locale ]) ~~~~~~~~~~~
Converts the eight-digit Gregorian date (a numeric integer data item or literal) from yyyymmdd format to the format appropriate to the current locale. On a Windows system, this will be the “short date” format as set using Control Panel.
You may include an optional second argument to specify the locale name (group item or PIC X identifier) you’d like to use for date formatting. If used, this second argument must be an identifier. Locale names are specified using UNIX-standard names.
LOCALE-TIME(time [, locale ]) ~~~~~~~~~~~
Converts the four- (hhmm) or six-digit (hhmmss) time (a numeric integer data item or literal) to a format appropriate to the current locale. On a Windows system, this will be the “time” format as set using Control Panel.
You may include an optional locale name (a group item or PIC X identifier) you’d like to use for time formatting. If used, this second argument must be an identifier. Locale names are specified using UNIX-standard names.
LOCALE-TIME-FROM-SECONDS(seconds [, locale ]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Converts the number of seconds since midnight (a numeric integer data item or literal) to a format appropriate to the current locale. On a Windows system, this will be the “time” format as set using Control Panel.
You may include an optional locale name (a group item or PIC X identifier) you’d like to use for time formatting. If used, this second argument must be an identifier. Locale names are specified using UNIX-standard names.
See LOCALE Names, for a list of typically-available locale names.
LOG(number) ~~~
Computes and returns the natural logarithm (base e) of number (a numeric literal or data item).
LOG10(number) ~~~~~
Computes and returns the base 10 logarithm of number (a numeric literal or data item).
LOWER-CASE(string) ~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the value of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal), converted entirely to lower case.
What constitutes a “letter” (or upper/lower case too, for that manner) may be influenced through the use of a CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION (see OBJECT-COMPUTER).
LOWEST-ALGEBRAIC(numeric-identifier) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the lowest (i.e. smallest or farthest away from 0 in a negative direction if numeric-identifier is signed) value that could possibly be stored in numeric-identifier.
MAX(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~
This function returns the maximum value from the specified list of numbers (each number-n may be a numeric data item or a numeric literal).
MEAN(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~
This function returns the statistical mean value of the specified list of numbers (each number-n may be a numeric data item or a numeric literal).
MEDIAN(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~~~
This function returns the statistical median value of the specified list of numbers (each number-n may be a numeric data item or a numeric literal).
MIDRANGE(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~~
The MIDRANGE (middle range) function returns a numeric value that is the arithmetic mean (average) of the values of the minimum and maximum numbers from the supplied list. Each number-n may be a numeric data items or a numeric literal.
MIN(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~
This function returns the minimum value from the specified list of numbers (each number-n may be a numeric data item or a numeric literal).
MOD(value, modulus) ~~~
This function returns the value of value modulo modulus (essentially the remainder from the division of value by modulus). Both arguments may be numeric data items or numeric literals. Either (or both) may have a non-integer value.
MODULE-CALLER-ID ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the null string if it is executed within a main program. When executed with a subprogram, it returns the entry-point name of the program that called the subprogram.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-DATE ~~~~~~~~~~~
This function Returns the date the GnuCOBOL program that is executing the function was compiled, in the form yyyymmdd.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the fully-formatted date and time when the program executing the function was compiled. The exact format of this returned string value may vary depending on the operating system and GnuCOBOL build type.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-ID ~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the primary entry-point name (i.e. the PROGRAM-ID or FUNCTION-ID of the program. See IDENTIFICATION DIVISION, for information on those clauses.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-PATH ~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the full path to the executable version of this GnuCOBOL program. The filename component of this value will be exactly as typed on the command line, down to the use of upper- and lower-case letters and presence (or absence) of any extension.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-SOURCE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The filename of the source code of the program (as specified on the cobc command when the program was compiled) is returned by this function.
The discussion of the MODULE-TIME (see MODULE-TIME) function includes a sample program that uses this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MODULE-TIME ~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the time the GnuCOBOL program was compiled, in the form hhmmss.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The following sample program uses all the MODULE- Functions:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMOMODULE.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
REPOSITORY.
FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
DISPLAY "MODULE-CALLER-ID = [" MODULE-CALLER-ID ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-DATE = [" MODULE-DATE ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE = [" MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-ID = [" MODULE-ID ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-PATH = [" MODULE-PATH ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-SOURCE = [" MODULE-SOURCE ‘]’
DISPLAY "MODULE-TIME = [" MODULE-TIME ‘]’
STOP RUN
.
The program produces this output when executed:
MODULE-CALLER-ID = [] MODULE-DATE = [20180522] MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE = [May 22 2018 12:43:14] MODULE-ID = [DEMOMODULE] MODULE-PATH = [/home/vince/cobolsrc/ACAS/demomodule] MODULE-SOURCE = [demomodule.cbl] MODULE-TIME = [124314]
MONETARY-DECIMAL-POINT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MONETARY-DECIMAL-POINT returns the character used to separate the integer portion from the fractional part of a monetary currency value according to the rules currently in effect for the locale under which your program is running.
On UNIX (including OSX, Windows/Cygwin and Windows/MinGW) systems, your locale is established via the
LANG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) environment variable. On Windows, the Control Panel’s Regional and Language Options define the locale.
Using the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause in your program will not affect the value returned by this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
MONETARY-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the character used to separate the thousands digit groupings of monetary currency values according to the rules currently in effect for the locale under which your program is running.
On UNIX (including OSX, Windows/Cygwin and Windows/MinGW) systems, your locale is established via the
LANG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) environment variable. On Windows, the Control Panel’s Regional and Language Options define the locale.
Using the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause in your program will not affect the value returned by this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
NUMERIC-DECIMAL-POINT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the character used to separate the integer portion of a non-integer numeric item from the fractional part according to the rules currently in effect for the locale under which your program is running.
On UNIX (including OSX, Windows/Cygwin and Windows/MinGW) systems, your locale is established via the
LANG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) environment variable. On Windows, the Control Panel’s Regional and Language Options define the locale.
Using the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause in your program will not affect the value returned by this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
NUMERIC-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the character used to separate the thousands digit groupings of numeric values according to the rules currently in effect for the locale under which your program is running.
On UNIX (including OSX, Windows/Cygwin and Windows/MinGW) systems, your locale is established via the
LANG run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) environment variable. On Windows, the Control Panel’s Regional and Language Options define the locale.
Using the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA (see SPECIAL-NAMES) clause in your program will not affect the value returned by this function.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
NUMVAL(string) ~~~~~~
The NUMVAL function converts a string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) to its corresponding numeric value.
The string must have any of the following formats, where ’#’ represents a sequence of one or more decimal digits:
There must be at least one digit character in the string.
Leading and/or trailing spaces are allowed, as are spaces before the first digit.
The character period in argument-1 string, represents the decimal separator. The character comma in argument-1 represents the grouping separator. When the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA clause is specified, the character comma shall be used in argument-1 to represent the decimal separator and the character period shall be used to represent the grouping separator.
Note: Locale-based functionality equivalent to NUMVAL can be obtained by using the NUMVAL-C function with the LOCALE keyword. A currency sign is optional in NUMVAL-C. The locale category LC_MONETARY will be used because there is no sign convention specified in locale category LC_NUMERIC.
Returned values:
The returned value is the numeric value represented by string.
If it contains a CR, DB, or the minus sign (‘-’), the returned value is negative.
NUMVAL-C (string [, symbol ]
~~~~~~~~
[, LOCALE locale-name-1 ] [, ANYCASE ])
This function converts a string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) representing a currency value to its corresponding numeric value.
The currency string if any, and any grouping separators preceding the decimal separator are ignored. Optionally, the currency string, sign convention, grouping separator and the decimal separator permitted in the character string may be specified by locale category LC-MONETARY, or the currency string may be specified by symbol.
The optional symbol character represents the currency symbol (a non-space single-character group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) that may be used as the currency character in string. Any spaces including leading or trailing are ignored. If no symbol is specified, the value that would be returned by the CURRENCY-SYMBOL intrinsic function (see CURRENCY-SYMBOL) will be used.
If this references the LOCALE :
Changing the currency symbol via the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph’s CURRENCY SYMBOL setting will not affect the value returned by this function.
While NUMVAL-C will always use the currency symbol that is specified via the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph’s CURRENCY SYMBOL (or the system default which is currently always ‘$’).
string may have any of the following formats, where ’#’ represents a sequence of one or more decimal digits and ’$’ represents the symbol character:
There must be at least one digit character in the string.
Leading and/or trailing spaces are allowed, as are spaces before and/or after the currency symbol, sign, CR and DB characters.
If the ANYCASE keyword is used the matching rules for detecting a currency string in argument-1 are case-insensitive. If the ANYCASE keyword is not specified, the matching rules are case-sensitive.
If neither symbol nor the LOCALE keyword is specified, there shall be only one currency string used, either the default currency sign or a currency string specified in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph.
The returned value is the numeric value represented by string.
When the LOCALE keyword is specified, the returned value is negative if string contains a negative sign.
When the LOCALE keyword is not specified, the returning value is negative if string contains CR, DB, or a minus sign.
NUMVAL-C (argument-1 [, argument-2 ]
~~~~~~~~
[, LOCALE locale-name-1 ] [, ANYCASE ])
This function returns the numeric value represented by the character string specified by argument-1 and defined as alphanumeric.
argument-2, the currency string if any, and any grouping separators preceding the decimal separator are ignored. Optionally, the currency string, sign convention, grouping separator and the decimal separator permitted in the character string may be specified by locale category LC-MONETARY, or the currency string may be specified by argument-2.
The optional alphanumeric argument-2 character represents the currency symbol (a non-space and at least one single-character item, that may be used as the currency character in argument-1. Any spaces including leading or trailing are ignored. If no argument-2 is specified, the value that would be returned by the CURRENCY-SYMBOL intrinsic function (see CURRENCY-SYMBOL) will be used. argument-2 must not contain any of the digits - through 9, characters ‘*’, ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘,’ or ‘.’; or the two consecutive letters CR or DB, whether upper or lower case or a combination of both.
argument-2 specifies a currency string that may appear in argument-1.
If the ANYCASE keyword is specified, the matching rules for detecting a currency string in argument-1 are case-insensitive. If not specified, the matching rules are case-sensitive.
If neither argument-2 nor the LOCALE keyword is specified, there shall be only one currency string used, either the default currency sign or a currency string specified in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph.
While NUMVAL-C will always use the currency symbol that is specified via the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph’s CURRENCY SYMBOL (or the system default which is currently always ’$’) argument-1 shall have any of the following formats, where ’#’ represents a sequence of one or more decimal digits and ’$’ represents the symbol character:
There must be at least one digit character in the string.
Leading and/or trailing spaces are allowed, as are spaces before and/or after the currency symbol, sign, CR and DB characters.
The returned value is the numeric value represented by argument-1.
When the LOCALE keyword is specified, the returned value is negative if string contains a negative sign and when not specified, the returning value is negative if string contains CR, DB, or a minus sign.
NUMVAL-F(char) ~~~~~~~~
This function converts a string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) representing a floating-point value to its corresponding numeric value.
There must be at least one digit character both before and after the E in the string.
Leading and/or trailing spaces are allowed, as are spaces before and/or after any sign characters.
ORD(char) ~~~
This function returns the ordinal position in the program character set (usually ASCII) corresponding to the 1st character of char argument (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal).
For example, assuming the program is using the standard ASCII collating sequence, ORD('!') returns 34 because ‘!’ is the 34th ASCII character. If you are using this function to convert an ASCII character to its numeric value, you must subtract one from the result.
The following code is an alternative approach when you just wish to convert an ASCII character to its numeric equivalent:
01 Char-Value.
05 Numeric-Value USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
…
MOVE "character" TO Char-Value
Numeric-Value now has the numeric value of character.
ORD-MAX(char-1 [, char-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~
This function returns the ordinal position in the argument list corresponding to the char-n whose 1st character has the highest position in the program collating sequence (usually ASCII).
For example, assuming the program is using the standard ASCII collating sequence, ORD-MAX('Z', 'z', '!') returns 2 because the 2nd character in the argument list (the ASCII character ‘z’) occurs after ‘Z’ and ‘!’ in the program collating sequence. Each char-n argument may be a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal.
ORD-MIN(char-1 [, char-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~
This function returns the ordinal position in the argument list corresponding to the char-n whose 1st character has the lowest position in the program collating sequence (usually ASCII).
For example, assuming the program is using the standard ASCII collating sequence, ORD-MIN('Z', 'z', '!') returns 3 because the 3rd character in the argument list (the ASCII character ‘!’) occurs before ‘Z’ and ‘z’ in the program collating sequence. Each char-n argument may be a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal.
PI ~~
This function returns the mathematical constant PI. The maximum precision with which this value may be returned is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795029.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
PRESENT-VALUE(rate, value-1 [, value-2 ]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The PRESENT-VALUE function returns a value that approximates the present value of a series of future period-end amounts specified by the various value-n arguments at a discount rate specified by the rate argument.
All arguments are numeric data items and/or numeric literals.
RANDOM[(seed)] ~~~~~~
This function returns a pseudo-random non-integer value in the range 0 to 1 (for example, 0.123456789).
The purpose of the optional seed argument, is to initialize the chain of pseudo-random numbers that will be returned by the function. Not only will calls to this function using the same seed value return the same pseudo-random number, but so will all subsequent executions of the function without a seed. This is actually a good thing when you are testing your program because you can rely on always receiving the same sequence of “random” numbers if you always start using the same seed.
The seed may be any form of literal or data item. If seed is numeric, its numeric value will serve as the seed value. If seed is alphanumeric, a value for it will be determined as if it were used as an argument to NUMVAL (see NUMVAL).
Take, for example, the following sample program:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMORANDOM.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Pseudo-Random-Number USAGE COMP-1.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE FUNCTION RANDOM(1) TO Pseudo-Random-Number
DISPLAY Pseudo-Random-Number
PERFORM 4 TIMES
MOVE FUNCTION RANDOM TO Pseudo-Random-Number
DISPLAY Pseudo-Random-Number
END-PERFORM
STOP RUN
.
Every time this program is executed, it will produce the same output, because the same sequence of pseudo-random numbers will be generated:
0.41
0.18467
0.63340002
0.26499999
0.19169
It is worth mentioning that if the first execution of RANDOM in your program lacks a seed argument, the result will be exactly as if that execution were coded with a seed argument value of 1.
Once your program has been thoroughly tested, you’ll want different sequences to be generated each time the program runs. One possible way to accomplish this is to use a seed that is likely to be different every time the program is executed, as is likely to be the case if the first MOVE statement in the previous example were replaced by this:
MOVE RANDOM(FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE(1:16))
TO Pseudo-Random-Number
The first 16 characters returned by the CURRENT-DATE (see CURRENT-DATE) function will be a number in the format YYYYMMDDhhmmssnn, where YYYYMMDD is the current calendar date and hhmmssnn is the current time of day to the one one-hundredth of a second. Since two different executions of the program will never get identical CURRENT-DATE values (unless they are executed in extremely close time frames to one another), using those first sixteen characters as the RANDOM seed will guarantee that receiving a duplicate sequence of pseudo-random numbers in two different executions of the program will be highly unlikely.
RANGE(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~~
The RANGE function returns a value that is equal to the value of the maximum number-n in the argument list minus the value of the minimum number-n argument.
All number-n arguments are numeric data items and/or numeric literals.
REM(number,divisor) ~~~
This function returns a numeric value that is the remainder of number divided by divisor. Both arguments must be numeric data items or numeric literals.
REVERSE(string) ~~~~~~~
This function returns the byte-by-byte reversed value of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal).
SECONDS-FROM-FORMATTED-TIME(format,time) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function decodes the string time — whose value represents a formatted time — and returns the total number of seconds that string represents.
The time string must contain hours, minutes and seconds. The time argument may be specified as a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or an alphanumeric literal.
The format argument is a string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or an alphanumeric literal) documenting the format of time using hh, mm and ss to denote where the respective time information can be found. Any other characters found in format represent character positions that will be ignored. For example, a format of hhmmss indicates that time will be treated as a six-digit string value where the first two characters are the number of hours, the next two represent minutes and the last two represent seconds. A format of hh:mm:ss, however, describes time as an eight-character string where characters 3 and 6 will be ignored.
SECONDS-PAST-MIDNIGHT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the current time of day expressed as the total number of elapsed seconds since midnight.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
SIGN(number) ~~~~
The SIGN function returns a -1 if the value of number (a numeric literal or numeric data item) is negative, a zero if the value of number is exactly zero and a 1 if the value of number if greater than 0.
SIN(angle) ~~~
This function determines and returns the trigonometric sine of angle (a numeric literal or numeric data item).
The angle is assumed to be a value expressed in radians. If you need to determine the sine of an angle measured in degrees, you first need to convert that angle to radians as follows:
COMPUTE radians = ( degrees * FUNCTION PI) / 180
SQRT(number) ~~~~
The SQRT function returns a numeric value that approximates the square root of number (a numeric data item or numeric literal with a non-negative value).
The following two statements produce identical results:
01 Result PIC 9(4).9(10).
…
MOVE FUNCTION SQRT(15) TO Result
COMPUTE Result = 15 ^ 0.5
STANDARD-DEVIATION(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the statistical standard deviation of the list of number-n arguments (numeric data items or numeric literals).
STORED-CHAR-LENGTH(string) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Returns the length — in bytes — of the specified string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal), minus the total number of trailing spaces, if any.
SUBSTITUTE(string, from-1, to-1 [, from-n, to-n ]...) ~~~~~~~~~~
This function parses string, replacing all occurrences of from-n strings with the corresponding to-n strings.
The from-n strings must match sequences in string exactly with regard to value and case.
A from-n string does not have to be the same length as its corresponding to-n string.
All arguments are group items, USAGE DISPLAY elementary items or alphanumeric literals.
A null to-n string will be treated as a single space.
SUBSTITUTE-CASE(string, from-1, to-1 [, from-n, to-n ]...) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The SUBSTITUTE-CASE function operates the same as the SUBSTITUTE (see SUBSTITUTE) function, except that from-n string matching is performed without regard to case.
All arguments are group items, USAGE DISPLAY elementary items or alphanumeric literals.
SUM(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~
The SUM function returns a value that is the sum of number-n arguments (these may be numeric data items or numeric literals).
TAN(angle) ~~~
This function determines and returns the trigonometric tangent of angle (a numeric literal or numeric data item).
The angle is assumed to be a value expressed in radians. If you need to determine the tangent of an angle measured in degrees, you first need to convert that angle to radians as follows:
COMPUTE radians = ( degrees * FUNCTION PI) / 180
TEST-DATE-YYYYMMDD(date) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function determines if the supplied date argument (a numeric integer data item or literal) is a valid date.
A valid date is one of the form yyyymmdd in the range 1601/01/01 to 9999/12/31, with no more than the expected maximum number of days in the month, accounting for leap year.
If the date is valid, a 0 value is returned. If it isn’t, a value of 1, 2 or 3 is returned signalling the problem lies with the year, month or day, respectively.
TEST-DATE-YYYYDDD(date) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function determines if the supplied date (a numeric integer data item or literal) is a valid date.
A valid date is one of the form yyyyddd in the range 1601001 to 9999365. Leap year is accounted for in determining the maximum number of days in a year.
If the date is valid, a 0 value is returned. If it isn’t, a value of 1 or 2 is returned signalling the problem lies with the year or day, respectively.
TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME ( argument-1, argument-2 ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME tests whether a date literal representing a date, a time or a combined date and time is valid according to the specified format.
argument-1 shall be a national or alphanumeric literal. The content must be either a date format or a combined date and time format.
argument-2 must be a data item of the same type as argument-1.
Returned value:
If no format or range problems occur during evaluation of argument-2 according to the format in argument-1, the returned value is zero. Otherwise the returned value is the ordinal character position at which the first error in argument-2 was detected.
TEST-NUMVAL(string) ~~~~~~~~~~~
The TEST-NUMVAL function evaluates string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) for being appropriate for use as the string argument to a NUMVAL (see NUMVAL) function, returning to a integer a zero value if it is appropriate otherwise if one or more characters are in error, the position of the first character in error or the length of the field plus one for other cases such as all spaces.
Note that these errors include but are not limited to: argument (string) is zero length, contains only spaces or contains valid characters but is incomplete, such as the string ‘+.’.
TEST-NUMVAL-C(string[,symbol]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function evaluates string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) for being appropriate for use as the string argument to a NUMVAL-C (see NUMVAL-C) function, returning to a integer a zero value if it is appropriate otherwise if one or more characters are in error, the position of the first character in error or the length of the field plus one for other cases such as all spaces.
Note that these errors include but are not limited to: argument (string) is zero length, contains only spaces or contains valid characters but is incomplete, such as the string ‘+.’.
The optional symbol argument serves the same function — and has the same default and possible values — as the corresponding argument of the NUMVAL-C function.
TEST-NUMVAL-F(string) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This function evaluates string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal) for being appropriate for use as the string argument to a NUMVAL-F (see NUMVAL-F) function, returning to a integer a zero value if it is appropriate otherwise if one or more characters are in error, the position of the first character in error or the length of the field plus one for other cases such as all spaces.
Note that these errors include but are not limited to: argument (string) is zero length, contains only spaces or contains valid characters but is incomplete, such as the string ‘+.’.
TRIM(string [, LEADING|TRAILING ]) ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
This function removes
LEADING or
TRAILING spaces from string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal).
The second argument is specified as a keyword, not a quoted string or identifier. If no second argument is specified, both leading and trailing spaces will be removed. The case (upper, lower or mixed) of this argument is irrelevant.
UPPER-CASE(string) ~~~~~~~~~~
This function returns the value of string (a group item, USAGE DISPLAY elementary item or alphanumeric literal), converted entirely to upper case.
What constitutes a “letter” (or upper/lower case too, for that manner) may be influenced through the use of a CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION (see OBJECT-COMPUTER).
VARIANCE(number-1 [, number-2 ]...) ~~~~~~~~
This function returns the statistical variance of the specified list of number-n arguments (these may be numeric data items or numeric literals).
WHEN-COMPILED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The WHEN-COMPILED intrinsic function, not to be confused with the WHEN-COMPILED (see Special Registers) special register, returns the date and time the program was compiled, in ASCII.
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
Unlike the WHEN-COMPILED special register, which has an ASCII value of the compilation date/time in the format mm/dd/yyhh.mm.ss, the WHEN-COMPILED intrinsic function returns the compilation date/time as an ASCII string in the format yyyymmddhhmmssnnooooo, where yyyymmdd is the date, hhmmss is the time, nn is the hundredths of a second component of the compilation time, if available (or 00 if it isn’t) and ooooo is the time zone offset from GMT.
If the -fintrinsics=WHEN-COMPILED switch or -fintrinsics=ALL switch is specified to the compiler or the REPOSITORY (see REPOSITORY) paragraph specifies either FUNCTION WHEN-COMPILED INTRINSIC or FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC, then references to WHEN-COMPILED (without a leading FUNCTION keyword will always reference this intrinsic function and there will be no way to access the WHEN-COMPILED special register.
YEAR-TO-YYYY(yy [, yy-cutoff [, yy-execution-time ]]) ~~~~~~~~~~~~
YEAR-TO-YYYY converts yy — a two-digit year — to a four-digit format (yyyy).
The optional yy-cutoff argument is the year cutoff used to delineate centuries; if yy meets or exceeds this cutoff value, the result will be 19yy; if yy is less than the cutoff, the result will be 20yy. The default cutoff value if no second argument is given will be 50.
The optional yy-execution-time argument (a numeric integer data item or literal) The default execution time value if no third argument is given will be now equivalent to specifying (FUNCTION NUMVAL (FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE (1:4))).
All arguments must be numeric data items or numeric literals.
BOOLEAN-OF-INTEGER(argument-1 argument-2) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
BOOLEAN-OF-INTEGER returns a boolean item of usage bit representing the binary value of argument-1. argument-2 specifies the length of the boolean data item that is returned.
argument-1 must be a positive integer.
argument-2 must be a positive non-zero integer
Returned value is a boolean item of usage bit that has the same bit configuration as the binary representation of the value of argument-1, where the rightmost boolean position is the low-order binary digit. The boolean value is zero-filled or truncated on the left, if necessary, in order to return a boolean item whose length is specified by argument-2 in therms of boolean positions.
CHAR-NATIONAL(argument-1) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
CHAR-NATIONAL returns a one character value that is a character in the national program collating sequence having the ordinal position equal to the value of the argument.
argument-1 must be a integer and greater than zero and less than or equal to the number of positions in the national program collating sequence.
DISPLAY-OF(argument-1 [ argument-2] ) ~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
DISPLAY-OF returns a character string containing the alphabetic coded character set representation of the national characters in the argument.
argument-1 must be of class national.
argument-2 must be a of class alphabetic or alphanumeric and is one character position in length. It specifies an alphanumeric substitution character for use in conversion of national characters for which there is no corresponding alphanumeric character.
A character string is returned with each national character of argument-1 converted to its corresponding alphanumeric character representation, if any.
If argument-2 is specified, the alphanumeric substitution character is returned for each national character in argument-1 that has no corresponding alphanumeric character representation.
If argument-2 is un-specified, and argument-1 contains a national character for which there is no corresponding alphanumeric character representation, an substitution character is used as the corresponding alphanumeric character and the EC-DATA-CONVERSION exception condition is set.
The length of the returned value is the number of character positions of usage display required to hold the converted argument and depends on the number of characters contained in argument-1.
EXCEPTION-FILE-N ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
EXCEPTION-FILE-N returns a national character string that is the I/O status value and file-name of the file connector, if any, associated with the last exception status.
The value returned has a length that is based on its contents and the concents are as follows:
If the last exception status is not an EC-I-O exception condition, the returned value is two national zeros.
The returned value is two national spaces when the last exception status indicates an EC-I-O exception condition that originates from one of the following statements:
RAISE statement.
EXIT or a GOBACK statement with a RAISING phrase that specifies an EC-I-O exception-name.
Otherwise the returned value is a character string that is as long as is needed to contain the I-O status value and the filename. The first two characters are the I-O status value in national characters. The succeeding characters contain the file-name exactly as specified in the SELECT clause converted at runtime to the runtime national character set.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
EXCEPTION-LOCATION-N ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
EXCEPTION-LOCATION-N returns an national character string containing exception information from the most-recently failing statement. The information is returned to a 1023 character string in one of the following formats, depending on the nature of the failure:
Since this function has no arguments, no parenthesis should be specified.
The program must be compiled with the -debug switch, -ftraceall switch or -g switch for this function to return any meaningful information.
The documentation of the CBL_ERROR_PROC built-in system subroutine (see CBL_ERROR_PROC) built-in subroutine illustrates the use of this function.
INTEGER-OF-BOOLEAN(argument-1) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
INTEGER-OF-BOOLEAN returns the numeric value of the boolean string in argument-1 which is class boolean.
Returned value as argument-1 is assigned to a temporary boolean data item of usage bit described with the same number of boolean positions.
The unsigned binary value represented by the same bit configuration as the bit configuration of that temporary boolean data item is determined.
Note: Binary representation is a mathematical concept. It is not required that this representation be the same as a COBOL representation.
NATIONAL-OF(argument-1 [argument-2] ) ~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
NATIONAL-OF returns a character string containing the national character representation of the characters in the argument which must be of class boolean.
A character string is returned with each alphanumeric character in argument-1 converted to its corresponding national coded character set representation.
If argument-2 is specified, each character in argument-1 that has no corresponding national representation is converted to the substitution character specified by argument-2.
If argument-2 is unspecified and argument-1 contains an alphanumeric character for which there is no corresponding national character representation, a substitution character is used as the corresponding national character and the EC-DATA-CONVERSION exception condition is set to exist.
The length of the returned value is the number of character positions of usage national required to hold the converted argument and depends on the number of characters contained in argument-1.
STANDARD-COMPARE(argument-1 argument-2 [ordering-name-1] [argument-4] ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This option is not yet implemented.
The included file NEWS will indicate when it is.
STANDARD-COMPARE returns a character indicating the result of comparing argument-1 as a alphanumeric and argument-2 using a cultural ordering table.
ORDER TABLE clause of the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph. ordering-name-1 identifies the ordering table to be used for the comparison. If ordering-name-1 is not specified, the default ordering table ‘ISO14651_2010_TABLE1’ described in Appendix A of ISO/IEC 14651:2011 shall be used.
Returned values:
EC-ORDER-NOT-SUPPORTED exception condition is set.
Note: This comparison is culturally sensitive and the default ordering table is acceptable for most cultures. It is not necessarily a character-by-character comparison and not necessarily a case-sensitive comparison. In order to use this function, users should understand the types of comparisons specified by ISO/IEC 14651:2D11 and the ordering tables in use for their installation.
the arguments compare equal,
argument-1 is less than argument-2,
argument-1 is greater than argument-2.
There are a number of built-in system subroutines included with GnuCOBOL.
Generally, these routines are intended to match those available in Micro Focus COBOL, ACUCOBOL and directly for GnuCOBOL.
It is recommended to change the CBL_OC routines to CBL_GC for forward compatibility as at some point they will be removed as they are a hangover from Open Cobol.
Prefix explanation:
C$–> ACU
CBL_–> MF
CBL_GC_(For backwards compatibility some routines are also available as CBL_OC_
as well): but these wonderful extensions are only available with GnuCOBOL.
These routines, all executed via their upper-case names via the CALL statement (see CALL), are capable of performing the following functions:
Early versions of Micro Focus COBOL allowed programmers to access various runtime library routines by using a single two-digit hexadecimal number as the entry-point name. These were known as call-by-number routines. Over time, Micro Focus COBOL evolved, replacing most of the call-by-number routines with ones accessible using a more conventional call-by-name technique.
Most of the call-by-number routines have evolved into even more powerful call-by-name routines, many of which are supported by GnuCOBOL.
Some of the original call-by-number routines never evolved call-by-name equivalents; GnuCOBOL supports some of these routines.
The following sections describe the various built-in subroutines. All subroutine arguments are mandatory except where explicitly noted to the contrary. Any subroutine returning a value to the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) could utilize the RETURNING clause on the
CALL statement to return the result back to the full-word binary data item of your choice.
CALL "C$CALLEDBY" USING prog-name-area ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine returns the name of the program that called the currently-executing program. The program name will be returned, left-justified and space filled, in prog-name-area argument, which should be a PIC X elementary item or a group item. If prog-name-area is too small to receive the entire program name, the program name value will be truncated (on the right) to fit.
The
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to one of the following values:
| -1 | An error occurred. The prog-name-area contents will be unchanged. |
| 0 | The program calling C$CALLEDBY was not called by any other program (in other words, it is a main program). The prog-name-area contents will be set entirely to spaces. |
| 1 | The program calling C$CALLEDBY was indeed called by another program, and that program’s name has been saved in prog-name-area. |
CALL "C$CHDIR" USING directory-path, result ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine makes directory-path (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) the current directory.
The return code of the operation is returned both in the result argument (any non-edited numeric identifier) as well as in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers). The return code of the operation will be either 0=Success or 128=failure.
The directory change remains in effect until the program terminates (in which the original current directory at the time the program was started will be automatically restored) or until another C$CHDIR or a CBL_CHANGE_DIR built-in system subroutine (see CBL_CHANGE_DIR) is executed.
CALL "C$COPY" USING src-file-path, dest-file-path, 0 ~~~~ ~~~~~
Use this subroutine to copy file src-file-path to dest-file-path as if it were done via the cp (Unix/OSX) or COPY (Windows) command.
Both file path arguments may be alphanumeric literals or identifiers.
The third argument is required, but is unused.
If the attempt to copy the file fails (for example, it or the destination directory doesn’t exist), the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 128; on successful completion it will be set to 0.
CALL "C$DELETE" USING file-path, 0 ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine deletes the file specified by the file-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) just as if that were done using the rm (Unix/OSX) or ERASE (Windows) command.
The second argument is required, but is unused.
If the attempt to delete the file fails (for example, it doesn’t exist), the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 128; on successful completion it will be set to 0.
CALL "C$FILEINFO" USING file-path, file-info ~~~~ ~~~~~
With this routine you may retrieve the size of the file specified as the file-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) and the date/time that file was last modified. File size information may not be available in the particular GnuCOBOL build / Operating System combination you are using and may therefore always be returned as zero. The information is returned to the file-info argument, which is defined as the following 16-byte area:
01 File-Info.
05 File-Size-In-Bytes PIC 9(18) COMP.
05 Mod-YYYYMMDD PIC 9(8) COMP. *> Modification Date
05 Mod-HHMMSS00 PIC 9(8) COMP. *> Modification Time
The last two decimal digits in the modification time will always be 00.
If the subroutine is successful, a value of 0 will be returned in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers). Failure to retrieve the needed statistics on the file will cause a
RETURN-CODE special register value of 35 to be passed back. Supplying less than two arguments will generate a 128
RETURN-CODE special register value.
CALL "C$GETPID" ~~~~
Use this subroutine to return the PID (process ID) of the executing GnuCOBOL program. The PID value is returned into the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
There are no arguments to this routine.
CALL "C$JUSTIFY" USING data-item, "justification-type" ~~~~ ~~~~~
Use C$JUSTIFY to left, right or center-justify an alphabetic, alphanumeric or numeric edited data-item. The optional justification-type argument indicates the type of the justification to be performed. Its value is interpreted as follows:
the value will be centered
the value will be right-justified, space-filled to the left
the value will be left-justified, space-filled to the right
If it begins with anything else, or is absent, it will be treated as if it is present and begins with a capital ‘R’
CALL "C$MAKEDIR" USING dir-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
With this routine you may create a new directory — the name of which is supplied as the dir-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier).
Only the lowest-level directory (last) in the specified path can be created — all others must already exist. This subroutine will not behave as a mkdir -p (Unix) or mkdir /p (Windows).
The
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to the return code of the operation; the value will be either 0=Success or 128=failure.
CALL "C$NARG" USING arg-count-result ~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine returns the number of arguments passed to the program that calls it back to in the numeric field arg-count-result. When called from within a user-defined function, a value of one (1) is returned if any arguments were passed to the function or a zero (0) otherwise.
When called from a main program, the returned value will always be 0.
CALL "C$PARAMSIZE" USING argument-number ~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine returns the size (in bytes) of the subroutine argument supplied using the argument-number parameter (a numeric literal or data item).
The size is returned in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
If the specified argument does not exist, or an invalid argument number is specified, a value of 0 is returned.
CALL "C$PRINTABLE" USING data-item [ , char ] ~~~~ ~~~~~
The C$PRINTABLE subroutine converts the contents of the data-item specified as the first argument to printable characters. Those characters that are deemed printable (as defined by the character set used by data-item) will remain unchanged, while those that are NOT printable will be converted to the character specified as the second argument.
If no char argument is provided, a period (‘.’) will be used.
Note: CBL_GC_PRINTABLE replaces this although it is currently still supported for legacy reasons.
CALL "C$SLEEP" USING seconds-to-sleep ~~~~ ~~~~~
C$SLEEP puts the program to sleep for the specified number of seconds. The seconds-to-sleep argument may be a numeric literal or data item.
Sleep times less than 1 will be interpreted as 0, which immediately returns control to the calling program without any sleep delay.
CALL "C$TOLOWER" USING data-item, BY VALUE convert-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine will converts the convert-length (a numeric literal or data item) leading characters of data-item (an alphanumeric identifier) to lower-case.
The convert-length argument must be specified BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any characters in data-item after the convert-length point will remain unchanged.
If convert-length is negative or zero, no conversion will be performed.
CALL "C$TOUPPER" USING data-item, BY VALUE convert-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine will converts the convert-length (a numeric literal or data item) leading characters of data-item (an alphanumeric identifier) to upper-case.
The convert-length argument must be specified BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any characters in data-item after the convert-length point will remain unchanged.
If convert-length is negative or zero, no conversion will be performed.
CALL "CBL_AND" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 | This subroutine performs a bit-by-bit logical AND operation between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the AND process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_CHANGE_DIR" USING directory-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine makes directory-path (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) the current directory.
The return code of the operation, which will be either 0=Success or 128=failure, is returned in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
The directory change remains in effect until the program terminates (in which the original current directory at the time the program was started will be automatically restored) or until another CBL_CHANGE_DIR or a C$CHDIR built-in system subroutine (see C$CHDIR) is executed.
CALL "CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST" USING file-path, file-info ~~~~ ~~~~~
With this routine you may retrieve the size of the file specified as the file-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) and the date/time that file was last modified. File size information may not be available in the particular GnuCOBOL build / Operating System combination you are using and may therefore always be returned as zero.
The information is returned to the file-info argument, which is defined as the following 16-byte area:
01 file-info.
05 File-Size-In-Bytes PIC 9(18) COMP.
05 Mod-DD PIC 9(2) COMP. *> Modification Date
05 Mod-MO PIC 9(2) COMP.
05 Mod-YYYY PIC 9(4) COMP.
05 Mod-HH PIC 9(2) COMP. *> Modification Time
05 Mod-MM PIC 9(2) COMP.
05 Mod-SS PIC 9(2) COMP.
05 FILLER PIC 9(2) COMP. *> Always 00
If the subroutine is successful, a value of 0 will be returned in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers). Failure to retrieve the needed statistics on the file will cause a
RETURN-CODE special register value of 35 to be passed back. Supplying less than two arguments will generate a 128
RETURN-CODE special register value.
CALL "CBL_CLOSE_FILE" USING file-handle ~~~~ ~~~~~
The CBL_CLOSE_FILE subroutine closes a byte stream file previously opened by either the CBL_OPEN_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_OPEN_FILE) or CBL_CREATE_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_CREATE_FILE) subroutines.
If the file defined by the file-handle argument (a PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X data item) was opened for output, an implicit CBL_FLUSH_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_FLUSH_FILE) will be performed before the file is closed.
If the subroutine is successful, a value of 0 will be returned in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers). Failure will cause a
RETURN-CODE special register value of -1 to be passed back.
CALL "CBL_COPY_FILE" USING src-file-path, dest-file-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
Use this subroutine to copy file src-file-path to dest-file-path as if it were done via the cp (Unix/OSX) or COPY (Windows) command.
Both arguments may be alphanumeric literals or identifiers.
If the attempt to copy the file fails (for example, it or the destination directory doesn’t exist), the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 128; on successful completion it will be set to 0.
CALL "CBL_CREATE_DIR" USING dir-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
With this routine you may create a new directory — the name of which is supplied as the dir-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier).
Only the lowest-level directory (last) in the specified path can be created — all others must already exist. This subroutine will not behave as a mkdir -p (Unix) or mkdir /p (Windows).
The
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to the return code of the operation; the value will be either 0=Success or 128=failure.
CALL "CBL_CREATE_FILE" USING file-path, 2, 0, 0, file-handle ~~~~ ~~~~~
The CBL_CREATE_FILE subroutine creates the new file specified using the file-path argument and opens it for output as a byte-stream file usable by CBL_WRITE_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_WRITE_FILE).
Arguments 2, 3 and 4 should be coded as the constant values shown. CBL_CREATE_FILE is actually a special-case of the CBL_OPEN_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_OPEN_FILE) routine — see that routine for a description of the meanings of arguments 2, 3 and 4.
A file-handle (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) will be returned, for use on any subsequent CBL_WRITE_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_WRITE_FILE) or CBL_CLOSE_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_CLOSE_FILE) calls.
The success or failure of the subroutine will be reported back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers), with a value of -1 indicating an invalid argument and a value of 0 indicating success.
CALL "CBL_DELETE_DIR" USING dir-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine deletes an empty directory.
The only argument — dir-path (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) — is the name of the directory to be deleted.
Only the lowest-level directory (last) in the specified path will be deleted, and that directory must be empty to be deleted.
The
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to the return code of the operation; the value will be either 0=Success or 128=failure.
CALL "CBL_DELETE_FILE" USING file-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine deletes the file specified by the file-path argument (an alphanumeric literal or identifier) just as if that were done using the rm (Unix/OSX) or ERASE (Windows) command.
If the attempt to delete the file fails (for example, it doesn’t exist), the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 128; on successful completion it will be set to 0.
CALL "CBL_EQ" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 | This subroutine performs a bit-by-bit comparison between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the EQ process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_ERROR_PROC" USING function, program-pointer ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine registers a general error-handling routine.
The function argument must be a numeric literal or a 32-bit binary data item (USAGE BINARY-LONG, for example) with a value of 0 or 1. A value of 0 means that you will be registering (“installing”) an error procedure while a value of 1 indicates you’re de-registering (“uninstalling”) a previously-installed error procedure.
The program-pointer must be a data item with a USAGE (see USAGE) of PROGRAM-POINTER containing the address of your error procedure. This item should be given a value using the SET Program-Pointer statement (see SET Program-Pointer). If the error procedure is written in GnuCOBOL, it must be a subroutine, not a user-defined function.
A success (0) or failure (non-0) result will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
A custom error procedure will trigger when a runtime error condition is encountered. An error procedure may be registered by a main program or a subprogram, but regardless of from where it was registered, it applies to the overall program compilation group and will trigger when a runtime error occurs anywhere in the executable program. If the error procedure was defined by a subprogram, that program must be loaded at the time the error procedure is executed.
An error procedure may be used to take whatever actions might be warranted to display additional information or to gracefully close down work in progress, but it cannot prevent the termination of program execution; should the error procedure not issue its own STOP RUN, control will return back to the standard error routine when the error procedure exits.
The code within the handler will be executed and — once the handler issues a return, if it was written in C, or an EXIT PROGRAM statement (see EXIT) or GOBACK statement, if it was written in GnuCOBOL, the system-standard error handling routine will be executed.
Only one user-defined error procedure may be in effect at any time.
The following is a sample GnuCOBOL program that registers an error procedure. The output of that program is shown as well. As as you can see, the error handler’s messages appear followed by the standard GnuCOBOL message.
1. IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 2. PROGRAM-ID. DemoERRPROC. 3. ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. 4. DATA DIVISION. 5. WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 6. 01 Err-Proc-Address USAGE PROGRAM-POINTER. 7. PROCEDURE DIVISION. 8. S1. 9. DISPLAY 'Program is starting' 10. SET Err-Proc-Address TO ENTRY 'ErrProc' 11. CALL 'CBL_ERROR_PROC' USING 0, Err-Proc-Address 12. CALL 'Tilt' *> THIS DOESN'T EXIST!!!! 13. DISPLAY 'Program is stopping' 14. STOP RUN 15. . 16. END PROGRAM DemoERRPROC. 17. 18. IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 19. PROGRAM-ID. ErrProc. 20. PROCEDURE DIVISION. 21. 000-Main. 22. DISPLAY 'Error: ' FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION 23. DISPLAY ' ' FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATEMENT 24. DISPLAY ' ' FUNCTION EXCEPTION-FILE 25. DISPLAY ' ' FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS 26. DISPLAY '*** Returning to Standard Error Routine ***' 27. EXIT PROGRAM 28. . 29. END PROGRAM ErrProc.
When executed, this sample program generates the following console output.
E:\Programs\Demos>demoerrproc
Program is starting
Error: DemoERRPROC; S1; 12
CALL
00
EC-PROGRAM-NOT-FOUND
*** Returning to Standard Error Routine ***
DEMOERRPROC.cbl: 27: libcob: Cannot find module 'Tilt'
E:\Programs\Demos>
CALL "CBL_EXIT_PROC" USING function, program-pointer ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine registers a general exit-handling routine.
The function argument must be a numeric literal or a 32-bit binary data item (USAGE BINARY-LONG, for example) with a value of 0 or 1. A value of 0 means that you will be registering (“installing”) an exit procedure while a value of 1 indicates you’re deregistering (“uninstalling”) a previously-installed exit procedure.
The program-pointer must be a data item with a USAGE (see USAGE) of PROGRAM-POINTER containing the address of your exit procedure.
A success (0) or failure (non-0) result will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
An exit procedure, once registered, will trigger whenever a STOP RUN statement (see STOP) or a GOBACK statement (see GOBACK) is executed anywhere in the program. The exit procedure may execute whatever code is desired to undertake an orderly shut down of the program. Once the exit procedure terminates by executing an EXIT PROGRAM statement (see EXIT) or a GOBACK statement, the system-standard program termination routine will be executed.
Only one user-defined exit procedure may be in effect at any time.
The following is a sample GnuCOBOL program that registers an exit procedure. The output of that program is shown as well.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. demoexitproc.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Exit-Proc-Address USAGE PROGRAM-POINTER.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Register-Exit-Proc.
SET Exit-Proc-Address TO ENTRY "ExitProc"
CALL "CBL_EXIT_PROC" USING 0, Exit-Proc-Address
IF RETURN-CODE NOT = 0
DISPLAY 'Error: Could not register Exit Procedure'
END-IF
.
099-Now-Test-Exit-Proc.
DISPLAY
'Executing a STOP RUN...'
END-DISPLAY
GOBACK.
END PROGRAM demoexitproc.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. ExitProc.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Display-Date PIC XXXX/XX/XX.
01 Display-Time PIC XX/XX/XX.
01 Now PIC X(8).
01 Today PIC X(8).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
DISPLAY '*** STOP RUN has been executed ***'
ACCEPT Today FROM DATE YYYYMMDD
ACCEPT Now FROM TIME
MOVE Today TO Display-Date
MOVE Now TO Display-Time
INSPECT Display-Time REPLACING ALL '/' BY ':'
DISPLAY '*** ' Display-Date ' ' Display-Time ' ***'
GOBACK.
END PROGRAM ExitProc.
CALL "CBL_FLUSH_FILE" USING file-handle ~~~~ ~~~~~
In Micro Focus COBOL, calling this subroutine flushes any as-yet unwritten buffers for the (output) file whose file-handle is specified as the argument to disk.
This routine is non-functional in GnuCOBOL. It exists only to provide compatibility for applications that may have been developed for Micro Focus COBOL.
CALL "CBL_GC_FORK" USING Child-PID ~~~~ ~~~~~
CBL_GC_FORK allows you to fork the current COBOL process to a new one.
The current content of the process’s storage (including LOCAL-STORAGE) will be identical, any file handles get invalid in the new process, positions and file and record locks are only available to the original process.
This system routine is not available on Windows (exception: GCC on Cygwin).
Parameters: none
Returns: pid (the child process gets ’0’ returned, the calling process gets the pid of the created child).
Negative values are returned for system dependant error codes and -1 if the function is not available on the current system.
CBL_GC_FORK allows you to fork the current COBOL process to a new one. The
current content of the process’ storage (including LOCAL-STORAGE) will be
identical, any file handles get invalid in the new process, positions and
file / record locks are only available to the original process.
This system routine is not available on Windows (exception: gcc on Cygwin).
Parameters: none Returns: pid (the child process gets 0 returned, the calling
process gets the pid of the created children). Negative values are returned for
system dependant error codes and -1 if the function is not available on the
current system.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 CHILD-PID PIC S9(9) BINARY.
01 WAIT-STS PIC S9(9) BINARY.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
CALL "CBL_GC_FORK" RETURNING CHILD-PID END-CALL
EVALUATE TRUE
WHEN CHILD-PID = ZERO
PERFORM CHILD-CODE
WHEN CHILD-PID > ZERO
PERFORM PARENT-CODE
WHEN CHILD-PID = -1
DISPLAY 'CBL_GC_FORK is not available on the current'
' system!'
PERFORM CHILD-CODE
MOVE 0 TO CHILD-PID
PERFORM PARENT-CODE
WHEN OTHER
MULTIPLY -1 BY CHILD-PID END-MULTIPLY
DISPLAY 'CBL_GC_FORK returned system error: ' CHILD-PID
END-EVALUATE
STOP RUN.
CHILD-CODE.
CALL "C$SLEEP" USING 1 END-CALL
DISPLAY "Hello, I am the child"
MOVE 2 TO RETURN-CODE.
PARENT-CODE.
DISPLAY "Hello, I am the parent"
CALL "CBL_GC_WAITPID" USING CHILD-PID RETURNING WAIT-STS
MOVE 0 TO RETURN-CODE
EVALUATE TRUE
WHEN WAIT-STS >= 0
DISPLAY 'Child ended with status: ' WAIT-STS
WHEN WAIT-STS = -1
DISPLAY 'CBL_GC_WAITPID is not available on the '
'current system!'
WHEN WAIT-STS < -1
MULTIPLY -1 BY WAIT-STS END-MULTIPLY
DISPLAY 'CBL_GC_WAITPID returned system error: ' WAIT-STS
END-EVALUATE.
CALL "CBL_GC_GETOPT" USING BY REFERENCE SHORTOPTIONS LONGOPTIONS LONGIND
~~~~ ~~~~~
BY VALUE LONG-ONLY
BY REFERENCE RETURN-CHAR OPT-VAL
CBL_GC_GETOPT adapts the well-known option parser, getopt, to GnuCOBOL.
The usage of this system routine is described by the following example.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. PROG.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
78 SHORTOPTIONS VALUE "jkl".
01 LONGOPTIONS.
05 OPTIONRECORD OCCURS 2 TIMES.
10 OPTIONNAME PIC X(25).
10 HAS-VALUE PIC 9.
10 VALPOINT POINTER VALUE NULL.
10 RETURN-VALUE PIC X(4).
01 LONGIND PIC 99.
01 LONG-ONLY PIC 9 VALUE 1.
01 RETURN-CHAR PIC X(4).
01 OPT-VAL PIC X(10).
01 COUNTER PIC 9 VALUE 0.
We first need to define the necessary fields for getopt’s shortoptions, longoptions, longoption index (longind), long-only-option (long-only)
and also the fields for return values return-char and opt-val (arbitrary
size with trimming, see return codes).
The shortoptions are written down as an alphanumeric field (i.e., a string
with arbitrary size) as follows:
"ab:c::d"
This means we want getopt to look for short options named ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ or ‘d’, require an option value for ‘b’, and accept an optional one for ‘c’.
The longoptions are defined as a table of records with oname, has-value, valpoint and val.5
oname defines the name of a longoption.
has-value defines if an option value is demanded (has-val = 1), optional
(has-val = 2) or not required (has-val = 0).
valpoint is a pointer used to specify an address to save getopt's return
value to. The pointer is optional. If it is NULL, getopt returns a value
as usual. If you use the pointer it has to point to a PIC X(4) field.
The field val is a PIC X(4) character which is returned if the longoption
was recognized.
The longoption structure is immutable! You can only vary the number of records.
Now we have the tools to run CBL_GC_GETOPT within the procedure division.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
MOVE "version" to OPTIONNAME (1).
MOVE 0 TO HAS-VALUE (1).
MOVE ‘V’ TO RETURN-VALUE (1).
MOVE "verbose" TO OPTIONNAME (2).
MOVE 0 TO HAS-VALUE (2).
MOVE ‘V’ TO RETURN-VALUE (2).
PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL RETURN-CODE = -1
CALL 'CBL_GC_GETOPT' USING
BY REFERENCE SHORTOPTIONS LONGOPTIONS LONGIND
BY VALUE LONG-ONLY
BY REFERENCE RETURN-CHAR OPT-VAL
END-CALL
DISPLAY RETURN-CHAR END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY OPT-VAL END-DISPLAY
END-PERFORM
STOP RUN.
The example shows how we initialize all parameters and call the routine until
CBL_GC_GETOPT runs out of options and returns -1.
return-char might contain the following
regular character if an option was recognized:
?undefined or ambiguous option
1non-option (only if first byte of so is ‘-’)
0valpoint != NULL and we are writing the return value to the specified address
-1no more options (or reach the first non-option if first byte of shortoptions is ‘+’)
The return-codes of CBL_GC_GETOPT are:
1a non-option (only if first byte of so is ‘-’)
0valpoint != NULL and we are writing the return value to the specified address
-1no more options (or reach the first non-option if first byte of shortoptions is ‘+’)
2truncated option value in opt-val (because opt-val was too small)
3a regular answer from getopt
CALL "CBL_GC_HOSTED" USING ARG-1 ARG-2 ~~~~ ~~~~~ Note replaces CBL_OC_HOSTED which is kept as a legacy item.
CBL_GC_HOSTED provides access to the following C hosted variables:
argcbinary-long by value
argvpointer to char **
stdin, stdout, stderrpointer
errnogiving address of errno in pointer to binary-long, use based for more
Direct access and conditional access to the following variables:
tznamepointer to pointer to array of two char pointers
timezoneC long, will be seconds west of UTC
daylightC int, will be 1 during daylight savings
The system will need HAVE TIMEZONE defined for these to return anything meaningful. Attempts made when they are not available will return 1 from CBL GC HOSTED.
It returns 0 when match, 1 on failure, case matters as does length, "arg" won’t match.
The usage of this system routine is described by the following example.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HOSTED.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Argc BINARY-LONG.
01 Argv POINTER.
01 Stdin POINTER.
01 Stdout POINTER.
01 Stderr POINTER.
01 Errno POINTER.
01 Err BINARY-LONG BASED.
01 Domain FLOAT-LONG VALUE 3.0.
01 Tzname POINTER.
01 Tznames POINTER BASED.
05 Tzs POINTER OCCURS 2.
01 Timezone BINARY-LONG.
01 Daylight BINARY-SHORT.
*>
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using stdin "stdin"
display "stdin : " stdin
call "feof" using by value stdin
display "feof stdin : " return-code
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using stdout "stdout"
display "stdout : " stdout
call "fprintf" using by value stdout by content "Hello" & x"0a"
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using stderr "stderr"
display "stderr : " stderr
call "fprintf" using by value stderr by content "on err" & x"0a"
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using argc "argc"
display "argc : " argc
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using argv "argv"
display "argv : " argv
call "args" using by value argc argv
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using errno "errno"
display "&errno : " errno
set address of err to errno
display "errno : " err
call "acos" using by value domain
display "errno after acos(3.0): " err ", EDOM is 33"
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using argc "arg"
display "'arg' lookup : " return-code
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using null "argc"
display "null with argc : " return-code
display "argc is still : " argc
*> the following only returns zero if the system has HAVE_TIMEZONE set
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using daylight "daylight "
display "'timezone' lookup : " return-code
if return-code not = 0
display "system doesn't has timezone"
else
display "timezone is : " timezone
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using daylight "daylight "
display "'daylight' lookup : " return-code
display "daylight is : " daylight
set environment "TZ" to "PST8PDT"
call static "tzset" returning omitted on exception
continue end-call
call "CBL_GC_HOSTED" using tzname "tzname"
display "'tzname' lookup : " return-code
*> tzs(1) will point to z"PST" and tzs(2) to z"PDT"
if return-code equal 0 and tzname not equal null then
set address of tznames to tzname
if tzs(1) not equal null then
display "tzs #1 : " tzs(1)
end-if
if tzs(2) not equal null then
display "tzs #2 : " tzs(2)
end-if
end-if
end-if
goback.
end program hosted.
Note that the legacy name of this routine that starts with CBL_OC is deprecated, as is NANOSLEEP but will still work. It is recommended that all library routines names starting with CBL_OC are replaced with CBL_GC to minimise issues.
CALL "CBL_GC_NANOSLEEP" USING nanoseconds-to-sleep ~~~~ ~~~~~ Note replaces CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP which is kept as a legacy item.
This subroutine puts the program to sleep for the specified number of nanoseconds.
The effective granularity of nanoseconds-to-sleep values will depend upon the granularity of the system clock your computer is using and the timing granularity of the operating system that computer is running.
For example, you will not expect to see any difference between values of 1, 100, 500 or 1000, but you should see a difference between values such as 250000000 and 500000000.
The nanoseconds-to-sleep argument is a numeric literal or data item.
There are one billion nanoseconds in a second, so if you wanted to put the program to sleep for 1/4 second you’d use a nanoseconds-to-sleep value of 250000000.
Note that the legacy name of this routine starts with “CBL_OC” is deprecated, as is HOSTED, but will still work. It is recommended that all library routines names starting with “CBL_OC” are replaced with “CBL_GC” to minimise issues.
CALL "CBL_GC_PRINTABLE" USING data-item [ , char ] ~~~~ ~~~~~ Note replaces C$PRINTABLE which is kept as a legacy item.
The CBL_GC_PRINTABLE subroutine converts the contents of the data-item specified as the first argument to printable characters.
Those characters that are deemed printable (as defined by the character set used by data-item) will remain unchanged, while those that are not printable will be converted to the character specified as the second argument.
If no char argument is provided, a period (‘.’) will be used.
CALL "CBL_GC_WAITPID" USING ARG-1
~~~~ ~~~~~
RETURNING RET-STATUS
~~~~~~~~~
CBL_GC_WAITPID allows you to wait until another system process ended.
Additionally you can check the process’s return code.
Parameters: none
Returns: function-status / child-status
Negative values are returned for system dependant error codes and -1 if the function is not available on the current system.
CALL "CBL_GC_WAITPID" USING CHILD-PID RETURNING WAIT-STS MOVE 0 TO RETURN-CODE DISPLAY 'CBL_GC_WAITPID ended with status: ' WAIT-STS
CALL "CBL_GET_CSR_POS" USING cursor-locn-buffer ~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine will retrieve the current cursor location on the screen, returning a 2-byte value into the supplied cursor-locn-buffer. The first byte of cursor-locn-buffer will receive the current line (row) location while the second receives the current column location.
The returned location data will be in binary form, and will be based upon starting values of 0, meaning that if the cursor is located at line 15, column 12 at the time this routine is called, a value of (14,11) will be returned.
The following is a typical cursor-locn-buffer definition:
01 CURSOR-LOCN-BUFFER.
05 CURSOR-LINE USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
05 CURSOR-COLUMN USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
Values of 1 (Line) and 1 (column) will be returned if GnuCOBOL was not generated to include screen I/O.
CALL "CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR" USING BY VALUE 0,
~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
BY VALUE length,
~~~~~
BY REFERENCE buffer
~~~~~~~~~
This retrieves the fully-qualified pathname of the current directory, saving up to length characters of that name into buffer.
The first argument is unused, but must be specified. It must be specified BY VALUE (see CALL).
The length argument must be specified BY VALUE.
The buffer argument must be specified BY REFERENCE.
The value specified for the length argument (a numeric literal or data item) should not exceed the actual length of buffer argument.
If the value specified for the length argument is LESS THAN the actual length of buffer argument, the current directory path will be left-justified and space filled within the first length bytes of buffer — any bytes in buffer after that point will be unchanged.
If the routine is successful, a value of 0 will be returned to the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers). If the routine failed because of a problem with an argument (such as a negative or 0 length), a value of 128 will result. Finally, if the 1st argument value is anything but zero, the routine will fail with a 129 value.
CALL "CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE" USING no-of-lines, no-of-cols ~~~~ ~~~~~
Use this subroutine to retrieve the current console screen size.
When the system is running in a windowed environment, this will be the sizing of the console window in which the program is executing. When the system is not running a windowing environment, the physical console screen attributes will be returned. In environments such as a Windows console window, where the logical size of the window may far exceed that of the physical console window, the size returned will be that of the physical console window. Two one-byte values will be returned — the first will be the current number of lines (rows) while the second will be the number of columns.
The returned size data will be in binary form.
The following are typical no-of-lines and no-of-columns definitions:
01 NO-OF-LINES USAGE BINARY-CHAR. 01 NO-OF-COLUMNS USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
GnuCOBOL run-time screen management must have been initialized prior to CALLing this routine in order to receive meaningful values. This means that a DISPLAY screen-data-item statement (see DISPLAY screen-data-item) or a ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) must have been executed prior to executing the CALL statement.
Zero values will be returned if the screen has not been initialized and values of 24 (lines) and 80 (columns) will be returned if GnuCOBOL was not generated to include screen I/O.
CALL "CBL_IMP" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 | This subroutine performs a bit-by-bit logical implies process between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the IMP process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_NIMP" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 | This subroutine performs the negation of a bit-by-bit logical implies process between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the NIMP process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_NOR" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 | This subroutine performs the negation of a bit-by-bit logical or’ process between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the NOR process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_NOT" USING item-1, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine “flips” the left-most 8*byte-length bits of item-1, changing 0 bits to 1, and 1 bits to 0. The changes are made directly im item-1.
The item-1 argument must be a data item. The length of item-1 must be at least 8*byte-length.
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be passed using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-1 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_OPEN_FILE" USING file-path, access-mode, 0, 0, handle ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine opens an existing file for use as a byte-stream file usable by CBL_WRITE_FILE or CBL_READ_FILE.
The file-path argument is an alphanumeric literal or data-item.
The access-mode argument is a numeric literal or data item with a PIC X USAGE COMP-X (or USAGE BINARY-CHAR) definition; it specifies how you wish to use the file, as follows:
1input (read-only)
2output (write-only)
3input and/or output
The third and fourth arguments would specify a locking mode and device specification, respectively, but they’re not implemented in GnuCOBOL (currently, at least) — just specify each as 0.
The final argument (handle) is a PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X item that will receive the handle to the file. That handle is used on all other byte-stream functions to reference this specific file.
A
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) value of -1 indicates an invalid argument, while a value of 0 indicates success. A value of 35 means the file does not exist.
CALL "CBL_OR" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 | This subroutine performs a bit-by-bit logical or process between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the OR process.
The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "CBL_READ_FILE" USING handle, offset, nbytes, flag, buffer ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine reads nbytes of data starting at byte number offset from the byte-stream file defined by handle into buffer.
The handle argument (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) must have been populated by a prior call to CBL_OPEN_FILE built-in system subroutine (see CBL_OPEN_FILE).
The offset argument (PIC X(8) USAGE COMP-X) defines the location in the file of the first byte to be read. The first byte of a file is byte offset 0.
The nbytes argument (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) specifies how many bytes (maximum) will be read.
If the flag argument is specified as 128, the size of the file (in bytes) will be returned into the file offset argument (argument 2) upon completion. Not all operating system/GnuCOBOL environments may be able to retrieve file sizes in such cases, a value of zero will be returned. The only other valid value for flags is 0. This argument may be specified either as a numeric literal or as a PIC X USAGE COMP-X data item.
Upon completion, the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 0 if the read was successful or to 10 if an "end-of-file" condition occurred. If a value of -1 is returned, a problem was identified with the subroutine arguments.
CALL "CBL_READ_KBD_CHAR" USING char RETURNING status-code. ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
Waits until a character is typed from the terminal and then read it with no echo.
Parameters: char PIC X. Receives the character that was typed, in ASCII.
status-code PIC XX COMP-5.
If RETURNING is not used the RETURN-CODE special register receives the status-code where zero is success and non-zero it is not.
[Above information taken from MF WB manual].
CALL "CBL_RENAME_FILE" USING old-file-path, new-file-path ~~~~ ~~~~~
You may use this subroutine to rename a file.
The file specified by old-file-path will be “renamed” to the name specified as new-file-path. Each argument may be an alphanumeric literal or data item.
Despite what the name of this routine might make you believe, this routine is more than just a simple “rename” — it will actually move the file supplied as the 1st argument to the file specified as the 2nd argument. Think of it as a two-step sequence, first copying the old-file-path file to the new-file-path file and then a second step where the old-file-path is deleted.
If the attempt to move the file fails (for example, it doesn’t exist), the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 128; on successful completion it will be set to 0.
CALL "CBL_SET_CSR_POS" USING cursor-locn-buffer ? ~~~~ ~~~~~
Set current position on terminal.
CALL "CBL_TOLOWER" USING data-item, BY VALUE convert-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine will convert the first convert-length (a numeric literal or data item) characters of data-item (an alpha-numeric identifier) to lower-case.
The convert-length argument must be specified BY VALUE (see CALL). It specifies how many (leading) characters in data-item will be converted — any characters after that will remain unchanged.
If convert-length is negative or zero, no conversion will be performed.
CALL "CBL_TOUPPER" USING data-item, BY VALUE convert-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine will convert the first convert-length (a numeric literal or data item) characters of data-item (an alpha-numeric identifier) to upper-case.
The convert-length argument must be specified BY VALUE (see CALL). It specifies how many (leading) characters in data-item will be converted — any characters after that will remain unchanged.
If convert-length is negative or zero, no conversion will be performed.
CALL "CBL_WRITE_FILE" USING handle, offset, nbytes, 0, buffer ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine writes nbytes of data from buffer to the byte-stream file defined by handle starting at byte number offset within the file.
The handle argument (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) must have been populated by a prior call to CBL_OPEN_FILE.
The offset argument (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) defines the location in the file of the first byte to be written to. The first byte of a file is byte offset 0.
The nbytes argument (PIC X(4) USAGE COMP-X) specifies how many bytes (maximum) will be written.
Currently, the only allowable value for the flags argument is 0. This argument may be specified either as a numeric literal or as a PIC X(1) USAGE COMP-X data item.
Upon completion, the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) will be set to 0 if the write was successful or to 30 if an I/O error condition occurred. If a value of -1 is returned, a problem was identified with the subroutine arguments.
CALL "CBL_XOR" USING item-1, item-2, BY VALUE byte-length ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
Old Old New Arg 1 Arg 2 Arg 2 Bit Bit Bit ===== ===== ===== 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 | This subroutine performs a bit-by-bit logical exclusive or process between the left-most 8*byte-length corresponding bits of item-1 and item-2, storing the resulting bit string into item-2. The truth table shown to the left documents the XOR process. The item-1 argument may be an alphanumeric literal or a data item and item-2 must be a data item. The length of both item-1 and item-2 must be at least 8*byte-length. |
The byte-length argument may be a numeric literal or data item, and must be specified using BY VALUE (see CALL).
Any bits in item-2 after the 8*byte-length point will be unaffected.
A result of zero will be passed back in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
CALL "SYSTEM" USING command ~~~~ ~~~~~
This subroutine submits command (an alphanumeric literal or data item) to a command shell for execution as if it were typed into a console/terminal window.
A shell will be opened subordinate to the GnuCOBOL program issuing the call to SYSTEM.
Output from the command (if any) will appear in the command window in which the GnuCOBOL program was executed.
On a Unix system, the shell environment will be established using the default shell program. This is also true when using a GnuCOBOL build created with and for OSX or the Cygwin Unix emulator.
With native Windows Windows/MinGW builds, the shell environment will be the Windows console window command processor (usually cmd.exe) appropriate for the version of Windows you’re using.
To trap output from the executed command and process it within the GnuCOBOL program, use a redirection (‘>’) to send the command output to a temporary file which you read from within the program once control returns.
The exit status of the executed command will be available in the RETURN-CODE special-register.
CALL X"91" USING return-code, function-code, binary-variable-arg ~~~~ ~~~~~
The original Micro Focus version of this routine is capable of providing a wide variety of functions. GnuCOBOL supports just three of them:
SWITCH-1, … , SWITCH-8) on.
SWITCH-1, … , SWITCH-8) off.
The return-code argument must be a one-byte binary numeric data item (USAGE BINARY-CHAR is recommended). It will receive a value of 0 if the operation was successful, 1 otherwise.
The function-code argument must be either a numeric literal or a one-byte binary numeric data item (USAGE BINARY-CHAR is recommended).
The third argument — variable-arg — is defined differently depending upon the function-code value, as follows:
Sets and/or clears all eight of the COBOL switches (SWITCH-1 through SWITCH-8). See SPECIAL-NAMES, for an explanation of those switches.
The variable-arg argument should be an OCCURS 8 TIMES table of USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
Each occurrence that is set to a value of zero prior to the CALL X"91" will cause the corresponding switch to be cleared. Each occurrence set to 1 prior to the CALL X"91" will cause the corresponding switch to be set.
Values other than 0 or 1 will be ignored.
Reads all eight of the COBOL switches (SWITCH-1 through SWITCH-8)
The variable-arg argument should be an OCCURS 8 TIMES table of USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
Each of the 1st eight occurrences of the array will be set to either 0 or 1 — 1 if the corresponding switch is set, 0 otherwise.
Retrieves the number of arguments passed to the program executing the CALL X"91", saving that number into the variable-arg argument. That should be a binary numeric data item (USAGE BINARY-CHAR is recommended).
CALL X"E4" ~~~~
Use X"E4" to clear the screen. There are no arguments and no returned value.
CALL X"E5" ~~~~
The X"E5" routine will sound the PC “bell”. There are no arguments and no returned value.
CALL X"F4" USING byte, table ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine packs the low-order (rightmost) bit from each of the eight 1-byte items in table into the corresponding bit positions of the single-byte data item byte.
The byte data item need be only a single byte in size. If it is longer, the excess will be unaffected by this subroutine.
The table data item must be at least 8 bytes long. If it is longer, the excess will be ignored by this subroutine.
Typically, table is defined similarly to the following:
01 Table-Arg.
05 Each-Byte OCCURS 8 TIMES USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
CALL X"F5" USING byte, table ~~~~ ~~~~~
This routine unpacks each bit of the single-byte data item byte into the low-order (rightmost) bit of each of the corresponding eight 1-byte items in table. The other seven bit positions of each of the first eight entries in table will be set to zero.
The byte data item need be only a single byte in size. If it is longer, the excess will be unaffected by this subroutine.
The table data item must be at least 8 bytes long. If it is longer, the excess will be ignored by this subroutine.
Typically, table is defined similarly to the following:
01 Table-Arg.
05 Each-Byte OCCURS 8 TIMES USAGE BINARY-CHAR.
There are a number of terms that describe various aspects of the operation of the Report Writer Control System (RWCS). Understanding the meanings of these terms is vital to developing an understanding of the subject.
An event that is triggered when a control field on an RWCS-generated report changes value. It is these events that trigger the generation of control heading and control footing groups.
A field of data being presented within a detail group; as the various detail groups that comprise the report are presented, they are presumed to appear in sorted sequence of the control fields contained within them. As an example, a department-by-department sales report for a chain of stores would probably be sorted by store number and – within like store numbers – be further sorted by department number. The store number will undoubtedly serve as a control field for the report, allowing control heading groups to be presented before each sequence of detail groups for the same store and control footing groups to be presented after each such sequence.
A report group that appears immediately after one or more detail groups of an RWCS-generated report. Such are produced automatically as a result of a control break. This type of group typically serves as a summary of the detail group(s) that precede it, as might be the case on a sales report for a chain of stores, where the detail groups documenting sales for each department (one department per detail group) from the same store might be followed by a control footing that provides a summation of the department-by-department sales for that store.
A report group that appears immediately before one or more detail groups of an RWCS-generated report. Such are produced automatically as a result of a control break. This type of group typically serves as an introduction to the detail group(s) that follow, as might be the case on a sales report for a chain of stores, where the detail groups documenting sales for each department (one department per detail group) from the same store might be preceded by a control heading that states the full name and location of the store.
A report group that contains the detailed data being presented for the report.
A report group that appears at the bottom of every page of an RWCS-generated report. Information typically found within such a report group might be:
A report group that appears at the top of every page of an RWCS-generated report. Information typically found within such a report group might be:
A report group that occurs only once in an RWCS-generated report — as the very last presented report group of the report. These typically serve as a visual indication that the report is finished.
One or more consecutive lines on a report that serve a common informational purpose or function. For example, lines of text that are displayed at the top or bottom of every printed page of a report.
A report group that occurs only once in an RWCS-generated report — as the very first presented report group of the report. These typically serve as an introduction to the report.
Every report has the same basic structure, as shown here, even though not all reports will have all of the groups shown. In fact, it is a very unusual report indeed that actually has every one of these groups:
| [1] | Presented throughout the report, as needed |
| [2] | Repeated, as needed |
These groups will be presented (printed) across however many formatted pages are necessary to hold them. No single report group will be allowed to cross page boundaries.
The management of paging, enforcement of the groups cannot span pages rule and almost every aspect of report generation are handled entirely by the Report Writer Control System.
Each page of a report is divided into as many as five (5) areas, as shown in the following diagram.
_______________________________ | | | Top-of-page Unusable Area |—# Lines: LINES AT TOP (LINAGE) |_______________________________| | |—Line #: HEADING (RD) | Heading Area | |_______________________________|—Line #: FIRST DETAIL (RD) - 1 | |—Line #: FIRST DETAIL (RD) | | | Body Area |—Line #: LAST CONTROL HEADING (RD) | |—Line #: LAST DETAIL (RD) |_______________________________|—Line #: FOOTING (RD) | |—Line #: FOOTING (RD) + 1 | Footing Area | |_______________________________| | | | Bottom-of-page Unusable Area |—# Lines: LINES AT BOTTOM (LINAGE) |_______________________________|
When describing a report via the RD (see REPORT SECTION) clause, the total number of usable lines are specified as the PAGE LIMIT value; this value is the sum of the number of lines contained in the Heading, Body and Footing Areas.
The unusable areas of a page (if any) will appear above and below that usable area. You don’t specify the unusable area in the RD, but rather using a LINAGE (see File/Sort-Description) clause in the FD of the file the report is “attached” to.
The various report groups will be presentable in the various areas of a page, as follows:
REPORT HEADINGHeading Area — An exception to this is the situation where the report heading report group contains the NEXT GROUP NEXT PAGE (see NEXT GROUP) option; in those cases, the report heading will be presented on a page by itself (anywhere on that page) at the beginning of the report.
PAGE HEADINGHeading Area
CONTROL HEADINGBody Area, but no line of a control heading is allowed past the line number specified by LAST CONTROL HEADING
DETAILBody Area, but no line of a detail report group is allowed past the line number specified by LAST DETAIL
CONTROL FOOTINGBody Area, but no line of a control footing report group is allowed past the line number specified by FOOTING
PAGE FOOTINGFooting Area
REPORT FOOTINGFooting Area — An exception to this is the situation where the report footing report group contains the NEXT PAGE option in its LINE (see LINE) clause; in those cases, the report footing will be presented on a page by itself at the end of the report.
A report created via a WRITE statement (see WRITE) will contain carriage-control information. Most notably, ASCII form-feed characters (X’0C’) will be written to the report file to support the statement’s ADVANCING PAGE option. Whether the data for a report line created via ADVANCING PAGE occurs before or after the form-feed character depends upon whether the programmer coded WRITE record-name BEFORE ADVANCING PAGE or WRITE record-name AFTER ADVANCING PAGE, respectively.
The GnuCOBOL implementation of RWCS does not issue any carriage-control information to the report files it produces — instead, it relies upon the information coded in the RD for the report (specifically the PAGE LIMITS and related options) and its internally-generated and managed
LINE-COUNTER special register (see Special Registers) for the report to know when to issue any blank lines to the file to fill-out the end of a printed page.
Because this is the way the GnuCOBOL RWCS works, in order to design an RWCS-generated report you’ll need to know answers to the following questions:
Once you know the answer to questions 1-4, you may easily determine the answers to the remaining questions as follows:
123456789012345678901234…).
PAGE LIMIT value for the RD.
The remaining PAGE LIMIT values can be established as required by your report(s).
Using identifier rather than integer specifications in the RD will give your program the ability — at run time — to accommodate multiple printers, fonts, font sizes and paper orientation. Just follow the above steps for each combination you wish your program to support.
Every report that employs control breaks has a natural hierarchy of those control breaks based upon the manner in which the data the report is being generated from is sorted. This concept is best understood using an example which assumes a COBOL program to process sales data collected from every computerized cash register across a chain of stores having multiple departments is being developed.
The application that collects data from the various cash registers at each store will generate data records that look like this to a COBOL program:
01 Sales-For-Register.
05 Sales-Date PIC 9(8).
05 Time-Collected PIC 9(6).
05 Register-Number PIC 9(7).
05 Store-Number PIC 9(3).
05 Department-Number PIC 9(3).
05 Total-Sales PIC 9(6)V99.
Your task is to develop a report that shows the sales total from each cash register and summarizes those sales by department within each store, by store and also generates a total sales figure for the day across all stores.
To accomplish this, you will use a SORT statement (see SORT) to sort the file of cash register sales data into:
So, assuming a sort file has been defined and its record layout (essentially a mirror of the raw data file) is defined as follows:
01 Sorted-Sales-For-Register.
05 Sorted-Sales-Date PIC 9(8).
05 Sorted-Time-Collected PIC 9(6).
05 Sorted-Register-Number PIC 9(7).
05 Sorted-Store-Number PIC 9(3).
05 Sorted-Department-Number PIC 9(3).
05 Sorted-Total-Sales PIC 9(6)V99.
Then the SORT statement to accomplish the desired sequencing would be:
SORT SORT-FILE
ASCENDING KEY Sorted-Store-Number
Sorted-Department-Number
Sorted-Register-Number
USING Input-file
OUTPUT PROCEDURE 100-Generate-Report
As a result of the sort, our program might expect to see data somewhat like this (date, time and sales totals are shown as “…”):
+-------------------- Register Number | +------------- Store Number | | +---------- Department Number | | | ...0535240001001... ...0589130001001... ...0625174001001... ...0122234001002... ...0732345001002... ...0003423001003... ...2038774001004... ...0112646002001... ...9963348002002... ...3245677002003... ...4456778002003... ...0002345002004...
Because of the sort, the most-frequently changing value of the three sort keys will be that of Sorted-Register-Number. This essentially defines the “detail” level of the report.
The next most-frequently changing value is that of Sorted-Department-Number, and the least-frequently changing value is that of Sorted-Store-Number. remember that the program should be generating totals each time one of these two values change, plus a grand total of sales at the end of the report. These three points are the
Control Break points of the report.
When the report is defined, it’s RD would contain a CONTROLS ARE clause that lists the control breaks in least- to most-frequent sequence of changing. This would be coded as:
CONTROLS ARE FINAL, Sorted-Store-Number, Sorted-Department-Number
A FINAL control break only occurs once, at the very end of the report. The CONTROL FOOTING for this break will be the one that produces the grand total of sales for all stores.
The next break listed on the CONTROLS clause will be the one that occurs next most-frequently (Sorted-Store-Number). This control break will be the one that produces the summation for each entire store, and will have its own CONTROL FOOTING.
The next (and last, in this case) break listed on the CONTROLS clause will be the one that occurs even more frequently (Sorted-Department-Number). The CONTROL FOOTING for this control field will be the one that summarizes sales for each department within a store.
This sequence of control breaks from least- to most-frequent (in other words, in the order they occur on the CONTROLS ARE clause) is the ’control hierarchy’ of the report; control breaks that occur more frequently than others are said to be at a lower level in the control hierarchy.
Defining a control hierarchy (via CONTROLS ARE) that does not match the actual sequence in which data will be processed is a great way to guarantee a “broken” report. I’ll show you an example in a later section.
This section contains an example of the RWCS at work. The complete program, presented here, is a stripped-down version of a program I have used to generate a report for a class I teach on PC hardware. This report will provide benchmark statistics on a variety of popular AMD and Intel CPUs. The data for the report was obtained from the website www.cpubenchmark.net in December of 2013. By the time you are reading this, that data will most likely have become rather out of date, but it illustrates RWCS well enough.
Here is the data that the program will be reading. Each record reflects the aggregated benchmark scoring for one particular CPU, as scores for benchmarks against that CPU have been reported to the cpubenchmark.net website by their PassMark benchmark software. The data consists of four fields. Fields are separated from one another by a single comma. The descriptions of the fields are as follows:
A five-digit number showing the aggregated benchmark scores for the CPU; the higher this number, the better the CPU performed in benchmark testing.
The name of the vendor who makes the CPU. In this data, that will either be “AMD” (American Micro Devices) or “INTEL”.
The 7-character family of CPU products the CPU falls into. This will have values such as “A4”, “A10”, “Core i5”, “Core i7”, etc.
The specific model of CPU within the family.
The first record of data shown below shows that the aggregated score of all benchmarks reported for the AMD A10-4600M CPU is 3145, as compared to the second record which shows that the aggregated score reported of all benchmarks reported for the Intel Core-i7-4960X CPU is 14291.
The following is the complete set of input data used for this example. This is by no means the complete set of data available at cpubenchmark.net — it is just a representative sample used for this example. For my class, I give my students a report showing the results for almost a thousand CPUs.
For the sake of brevity, this document lists the data in three columns.
03145,AMD,A10,4600M 05421,AMD,FX,6100 03917,Intel,Core i5,4300U 14291,Intel,Core i7,4960X 05813,AMD,FX,6120 01743,Intel,Core i5,4300Y 02505,AMD,A10,4655M 06194,AMD,FX,6200 04804,Intel,Core i5,4330M 03449,AMD,A10,4657M 06388,AMD,FX,6300 03604,Intel,Core i5,4350U 04251,AMD,A10,5700 07017,AMD,FX,6350 06282,Intel,Core i5,4430 02758,AMD,A10,5745M 06163,AMD,FX,8100 05954,Intel,Core i5,4430S 03332,AMD,A10,5750M 06605,AMD,FX,8120 06517,Intel,Core i5,4440 03253,AMD,A10,5757M 06845,AMD,FX,8140 07061,Intel,Core i5,4570 04798,AMD,A10,5800B 07719,AMD,FX,8150 06474,Intel,Core i5,4570R 04677,AMD,A10,5800K 08131,AMD,FX,8320 06803,Intel,Core i5,4570S 04767,AMD,A10,6700 09067,AMD,FX,8350 02503,Intel,Core i5,4570T 05062,AMD,A10,6800K 09807,AMD,FX,9370 07492,Intel,Core i5,4670 00677,AMD,A4,1200 10479,AMD,FX,9590 07565,Intel,Core i5,4670K 00559,AMD,A4,1250 03076,Intel,Core i3,3110M 06351,Intel,Core i5,4670T 01583,AMD,A4,3300 03301,Intel,Core i3,3120M 03701,Intel,Core i7,3517U 01237,AMD,A4,3300M 03655,Intel,Core i3,3130M 03449,Intel,Core i7,3517UE 01227,AMD,A4,3305M 03820,Intel,Core i3,3210 04588,Intel,Core i7,3520M 01263,AMD,A4,3310MX 02266,Intel,Core i3,3217U 03912,Intel,Core i7,3537U 01193,AMD,A4,3320M 04219,Intel,Core i3,3220 04861,Intel,Core i7,3540M 01343,AMD,A4,3330MX 03724,Intel,Core i3,3220T 04009,Intel,Core i7,3555LE 01625,AMD,A4,3400 04407,Intel,Core i3,3225 06144,Intel,Core i7,3610QE 01768,AMD,A4,3420 02575,Intel,Core i3,3227U 07532,Intel,Core i7,3610QM 01685,AMD,A4,4300M 01885,Intel,Core i3,3229Y 06988,Intel,Core i7,3612QE 01169,AMD,A4,4355M 04259,Intel,Core i3,3240 06907,Intel,Core i7,3612QM 01919,AMD,A4,5000 03793,Intel,Core i3,3240T 05495,Intel,Core i7,3615QE 01973,AMD,A4,5150M 04414,Intel,Core i3,3245 07310,Intel,Core i7,3615QM 02078,AMD,A4,5300 04757,Intel,Core i3,3250 07759,Intel,Core i7,3630QM 01632,AMD,A4,5300B 03443,Intel,Core i3,4000M 07055,Intel,Core i7,3632QM 02305,AMD,A4,6300 02459,Intel,Core i3,4010U 06516,Intel,Core i7,3635QM 01634,AMD,A6,1450 02003,Intel,Core i3,4010Y 04032,Intel,Core i7,3667U 01964,AMD,A6,3400M 04904,Intel,Core i3,4130 04271,Intel,Core i7,3687U 02101,AMD,A6,3410MX 04041,Intel,Core i3,4130T 03479,Intel,Core i7,3689Y 02078,AMD,A6,3420M 05115,Intel,Core i3,4330 08347,Intel,Core i7,3720QM 02277,AMD,A6,3430MX 05117,Intel,Core i3,4340 08512,Intel,Core i7,3740QM 01995,AMD,A6,3500 03807,Intel,Core i5,3210M 09420,Intel,Core i7,3770 02798,AMD,A6,3600 03995,Intel,Core i5,3230M 09578,Intel,Core i7,3770K 02892,AMD,A6,3620 03126,Intel,Core i5,3317U 09074,Intel,Core i7,3770S 03232,AMD,A6,3650 04101,Intel,Core i5,3320M 08280,Intel,Core i7,3770T 03327,AMD,A6,3670 05902,Intel,Core i5,3330 08995,Intel,Core i7,3820 01630,AMD,A6,4400M 05690,Intel,Core i5,3330S 08548,Intel,Core i7,3820QM 01296,AMD,A6,4455M 05781,Intel,Core i5,3335S 09025,Intel,Core i7,3840QM 02440,AMD,A6,5200 03280,Intel,Core i5,3337U 09196,Intel,Core i7,3920XM 01958,AMD,A6,5350M 02252,Intel,Core i5,3339Y 12107,Intel,Core i7,3930K 01878,AMD,A6,5357M 06282,Intel,Core i5,3340 09052,Intel,Core i7,3940XM 01906,AMD,A6,5400B 04327,Intel,Core i5,3340M 12718,Intel,Core i7,3960X 02174,AMD,A6,5400K 05372,Intel,Core i5,3340S 12823,Intel,Core i7,3970X 02384,AMD,A6,6400K 06199,Intel,Core i5,3350P 03992,Intel,Core i7,4500U 02050,AMD,A8,3500M 04314,Intel,Core i5,3360M 04507,Intel,Core i7,4558U 02426,AMD,A8,3510MX 04555,Intel,Core i5,3380M 04892,Intel,Core i7,4600M 02245,AMD,A8,3520M 03589,Intel,Core i5,3427U 04484,Intel,Core i7,4600U 02276,AMD,A8,3530MX 03479,Intel,Core i5,3437U 03680,Intel,Core i7,4610Y 02866,AMD,A8,3550MX 03057,Intel,Core i5,3439Y 04345,Intel,Core i7,4650U 03215,AMD,A8,3800 06442,Intel,Core i5,3450 07352,Intel,Core i7,4700EQ 03217,AMD,A8,3820 06071,Intel,Core i5,3450S 08161,Intel,Core i7,4700HQ 03552,AMD,A8,3850 06576,Intel,Core i5,3470 07946,Intel,Core i7,4700MQ 03682,AMD,A8,3870K 06077,Intel,Core i5,3470S 08002,Intel,Core i7,4702HQ 02709,AMD,A8,4500M 04591,Intel,Core i5,3470T 07647,Intel,Core i7,4702MQ 02193,AMD,A8,4555M 05991,Intel,Core i5,3475S 08066,Intel,Core i7,4750HQ 04052,AMD,A8,5500 06828,Intel,Core i5,3550 07367,Intel,Core i7,4765T 03464,AMD,A8,5500B 06631,Intel,Core i5,3550S 09969,Intel,Core i7,4770 02434,AMD,A8,5545M 06993,Intel,Core i5,3570 10190,Intel,Core i7,4770K 03052,AMD,A8,5550M 07118,Intel,Core i5,3570K 09803,Intel,Core i7,4770S 02935,AMD,A8,5557M 06709,Intel,Core i5,3570S 08803,Intel,Core i7,4770T 04348,AMD,A8,5600K 05414,Intel,Core i5,3570T 10078,Intel,Core i7,4771 04390,AMD,A8,6500 04333,Intel,Core i5,4200M 08567,Intel,Core i7,4800MQ 04719,AMD,A8,6600K 03355,Intel,Core i5,4200U 09969,Intel,Core i7,4820K 04055,AMD,FX,4100 02358,Intel,Core i5,4200Y 09331,Intel,Core i7,4850HQ 04153,AMD,FX,4130 02382,Intel,Core i5,4210Y 09323,Intel,Core i7,4900MQ 04094,AMD,FX,4150 03482,Intel,Core i5,4250U 13620,Intel,Core i7,4930K 04774,AMD,FX,4170 04381,Intel,Core i5,4258U 09754,Intel,Core i7,4930MX 04711,AMD,FX,4300 04663,Intel,Core i5,4288U 10262,Intel,Core i7,4960HQ 05247,AMD,FX,4350 04786,Intel,Core i5,4300M
Here is the program that will be producing the report. Pay attention to how the data is sorted and how the control hierarchy (CONTROLS ARE) relates to the SORT.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMORWCS.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
REPOSITORY. FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT CPU-FILE ASSIGN TO "CPUDATA.txt"
LINE SEQUENTIAL.
SELECT REPORT-FILE ASSIGN TO "CPUREPORT.txt"
LINE SEQUENTIAL.
SELECT SORT-FILE ASSIGN TO DISK.
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD CPU-FILE.
01 CPU-REC PIC X(26).
FD REPORT-FILE
REPORT IS CPU-Report.
SD SORT-FILE.
01 SORT-REC.
05 F-SR-Score-NUM PIC 9(5).
05 F-SR-Vendor-TXT PIC X(5).
05 F-SR-Family-TXT PIC X(7).
05 F-SR-Model-TXT PIC X(6).
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 WS-Date PIC 9(8).
01 WS-Family-Counters.
05 WS-FC-AVE PIC 9(5)V99.
05 WS-FC-Qty BINARY-LONG.
05 WS-FC-Total-NUM BINARY-LONG.
01 WS-Flags.
05 WS-F-EOF PIC X(1).
01 WS-One-Const PIC 9 VALUE 1.
01 WS-Overall-Counters.
05 WS-OC-AVE PIC 9(5)V99.
05 WS-OC-Qty BINARY-LONG.
05 WS-OC-Total-NUM BINARY-LONG.
01 WS-Starz PIC X(44) VALUE ALL '*'.
01 WS-Vendor-Counters.
05 WS-VC-AVE PIC 9(5)V99.
05 WS-VC-Qty BINARY-LONG.
05 WS-VC-Total-NUM BINARY-LONG.
REPORT SECTION.
RD CPU-Report
CONTROLS ARE FINAL
F-SR-Vendor-TXT
F-SR-Family-TXT
PAGE LIMIT IS 36 LINES
HEADING 1
FIRST DETAIL 5
LAST DETAIL 36.
01 TYPE IS PAGE HEADING.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Date PIC 9999/99/99.
10 COL 14 VALUE 'CPU Benchmark Scores'.
10 COL 37 VALUE 'Page:'.
10 COL 43 SOURCE PAGE-COUNTER PIC Z9.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 VALUE '**'.
10 COL 6 VALUE 'All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net'.
10 COL 43 VALUE '**'.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
01 TYPE CONTROL HEADING F-SR-Family-TXT.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE F-SR-Vendor-TXT PIC X(6).
10 COL 8 SOURCE F-SR-Family-TXT PIC X(7).
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 VALUE 'Family'.
10 COL 9 VALUE 'Model'.
10 COL 16 VALUE 'Benchmark Score (High to Low)'.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 VALUE '======'.
10 COL 9 VALUE '======'.
10 COL 16 VALUE '============================='.
01 Detail-Line TYPE IS DETAIL.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE F-SR-Family-TXT PIC X(7) GROUP INDICATE.
10 COL 9 PIC X(6) SOURCE F-SR-Model-TXT.
10 COL 16 PIC ZZZZ9 SOURCE F-SR-Score-NUM.
01 End-Family TYPE IS CONTROL FOOTING F-SR-Family-TXT.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 9 VALUE 'Ave...'.
10 COL 16 PIC ZZZZ9.99 SOURCE WS-FC-AVE.
10 COL 25 VALUE '('.
10 COL 26 PIC ZZ9 SUM WS-One-Const.
10 COL 30 VALUE 'Family CPUs)'.
01 End-Vendor TYPE IS CONTROL FOOTING F-SR-Vendor-TXT.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 9 VALUE 'Ave...'.
10 COL 16 PIC ZZZZ9.99 SOURCE WS-VC-AVE.
10 COL 25 VALUE '('.
10 COL 26 PIC ZZ9 SUM WS-One-Const.
10 COL 30 VALUE 'Vendor CPUs)'.
01 End-Overall TYPE IS CONTROL FOOTING FINAL.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 9 VALUE 'Ave...'.
10 COL 16 PIC ZZZZ9.99 SOURCE WS-OC-AVE.
10 COL 25 VALUE '('.
10 COL 26 PIC ZZ9 SUM WS-One-Const.
10 COL 30 VALUE 'CPUs)'.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DECLARATIVES.
000-End-Family SECTION.
USE BEFORE REPORTING End-Family.
1. IF WS-FC-Qty > 0
COMPUTE WS-FC-AVE = WS-FC-Total-NUM / WS-FC-Qty
ELSE
MOVE 0 TO WS-FC-AVE
END-IF
MOVE 0 TO WS-FC-Qty
WS-FC-Total-NUM
.
000-End-Vendor SECTION.
USE BEFORE REPORTING End-Vendor.
1. IF WS-VC-Qty > 0
COMPUTE WS-VC-AVE = WS-VC-Total-NUM / WS-VC-Qty
ELSE
MOVE 0 TO WS-VC-AVE
END-IF
MOVE 0 TO WS-VC-Qty
WS-VC-Total-NUM
.
000-End-Overall SECTION.
USE BEFORE REPORTING End-Overall.
1. IF WS-OC-Qty > 0
COMPUTE WS-OC-AVE = WS-OC-Total-NUM / WS-OC-Qty
ELSE
MOVE 0 TO WS-OC-AVE
END-IF
MOVE 0 TO WS-OC-Qty
WS-OC-Total-NUM
.
END DECLARATIVES.
010-Main SECTION.
1. ACCEPT WS-Date FROM DATE YYYYMMDD
SORT SORT-FILE
ASCENDING KEY F-SR-Vendor-TXT
F-SR-Family-TXT
DESCENDING KEY F-SR-Score-NUM
ASCENDING KEY F-SR-Model-TXT
INPUT PROCEDURE 100-Pre-Process-Data
OUTPUT PROCEDURE 200-Generate-Report
STOP RUN
.
100-Pre-Process-Data SECTION.
1. OPEN INPUT CPU-FILE
PERFORM FOREVER
READ CPU-FILE
AT END
EXIT PERFORM
END-READ
MOVE SPACES TO SORT-REC
UNSTRING CPU-REC DELIMITED BY ','
INTO F-SR-Score-NUM,
F-SR-Vendor-TXT,
F-SR-Family-TXT,
F-SR-Model-TXT
RELEASE SORT-REC
END-PERFORM
CLOSE CPU-FILE
.
200-Generate-Report SECTION.
1. INITIALIZE WS-Family-Counters
WS-Flags
OPEN OUTPUT REPORT-FILE
INITIATE CPU-Report
RETURN SORT-FILE
AT END
MOVE 'Y' TO WS-F-EOF
END-RETURN
PERFORM UNTIL WS-F-EOF = 'Y'
GENERATE Detail-Line
ADD 1 TO WS-FC-Qty
WS-OC-Qty
WS-VC-Qty
ADD F-SR-Score-NUM TO WS-FC-Total-NUM
WS-OC-Total-NUM
WS-VC-Total-NUM
RETURN SORT-FILE
AT END
MOVE 'Y' TO WS-F-EOF
END-RETURN
END-PERFORM
TERMINATE CPU-Report
CLOSE REPORT-FILE
.
Finally, here’s the report the program generates!
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 1
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
AMD A10
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A10 6800K 5062
5800B 4798
6700 4767
5800K 4677
5700 4251
4657M 3449
5750M 3332
5757M 3253
4600M 3145
5745M 2758
4655M 2505
Ave... 3817.90 ( 11 Family CPUs)
AMD A4
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A4 6300 2305
5300 2078
5150M 1973
5000 1919
3420 1768
4300M 1685
5300B 1632
3400 1625
3300 1583
3330MX 1343
3310MX 1263
3300M 1237
3305M 1227
3320M 1193
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 2
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
A4 4355M 1169
1200 677
1250 559
Ave... 1484.47 ( 17 Family CPUs)
AMD A6
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A6 3670 3327
3650 3232
3620 2892
3600 2798
5200 2440
6400K 2384
3430MX 2277
5400K 2174
3410MX 2101
3420M 2078
3500 1995
3400M 1964
5350M 1958
5400B 1906
5357M 1878
1450 1634
4400M 1630
4455M 1296
Ave... 2220.22 ( 18 Family CPUs)
AMD A8
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A8 6600K 4719
6500 4390
5600K 4348
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 3
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
A8 5500 4052
3870K 3682
3850 3552
5500B 3464
3820 3217
3800 3215
5550M 3052
5557M 2935
3550MX 2866
4500M 2709
5545M 2434
3510MX 2426
3530MX 2276
3520M 2245
4555M 2193
3500M 2050
Ave... 3148.68 ( 19 Family CPUs)
AMD FX
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
FX 9590 10479
9370 9807
8350 9067
8320 8131
8150 7719
6350 7017
8140 6845
8120 6605
6300 6388
6200 6194
8100 6163
6120 5813
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 4
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
FX 6100 5421
4350 5247
4170 4774
4300 4711
4130 4153
4150 4094
4100 4055
Ave... 6457.00 ( 19 Family CPUs)
Ave... 3448.86 ( 84 Vendor CPUs)
Intel Core i3
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
Core i3 4340 5117
4330 5115
4130 4904
3250 4757
3245 4414
3225 4407
3240 4259
3220 4219
4130T 4041
3210 3820
3240T 3793
3220T 3724
3130M 3655
4000M 3443
3120M 3301
3110M 3076
3227U 2575
4010U 2459
3217U 2266
4010Y 2003
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 5
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
Core i3 3229Y 1885
Ave... 3677.76 ( 21 Family CPUs)
Intel Core i5
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
Core i5 4670K 7565
4670 7492
3570K 7118
4570 7061
3570 6993
3550 6828
4570S 6803
3570S 6709
3550S 6631
3470 6576
4440 6517
4570R 6474
3450 6442
4670T 6351
3340 6282
4430 6282
3350P 6199
3470S 6077
3450S 6071
3475S 5991
4430S 5954
3330 5902
3335S 5781
3330S 5690
3570T 5414
3340S 5372
4330M 4804
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 6
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
Core i5 4300M 4786
4288U 4663
3470T 4591
3380M 4555
4258U 4381
4200M 4333
3340M 4327
3360M 4314
3320M 4101
3230M 3995
4300U 3917
3210M 3807
4350U 3604
3427U 3589
4250U 3482
3437U 3479
4200U 3355
3337U 3280
3317U 3126
3439Y 3057
4570T 2503
4210Y 2382
4200Y 2358
3339Y 2252
4300Y 1743
Ave... 5026.13 ( 52 Family CPUs)
Intel Core i7
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
Core i7 4960X 14291
4930K 13620
3970X 12823
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 7
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
Core i7 3960X 12718
3930K 12107
4960HQ 10262
4770K 10190
4771 10078
4770 9969
4820K 9969
4770S 9803
4930MX 9754
3770K 9578
3770 9420
4850HQ 9331
4900MQ 9323
3920XM 9196
3770S 9074
3940XM 9052
3840QM 9025
3820 8995
4770T 8803
4800MQ 8567
3820QM 8548
3740QM 8512
3720QM 8347
3770T 8280
4700HQ 8161
4750HQ 8066
4702HQ 8002
4700MQ 7946
3630QM 7759
4702MQ 7647
3610QM 7532
4765T 7367
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 8
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
Core i7 4700EQ 7352
3615QM 7310
3632QM 7055
3612QE 6988
3612QM 6907
3635QM 6516
3610QE 6144
3615QE 5495
4600M 4892
3540M 4861
3520M 4588
4558U 4507
4600U 4484
4650U 4345
3687U 4271
3667U 4032
3555LE 4009
4500U 3992
3537U 3912
3517U 3701
4610Y 3680
3689Y 3479
3517UE 3449
Ave... 7725.58 ( 58 Family CPUs)
Ave... 6005.16 (131 Vendor CPUs)
Ave... 5006.42 (215 CPUs)
____________________________________________
The sample program just discussed presents a great opportunity to show what can happen if you don’t define the control hierarchy of a report properly.
I changed the CONTROLS ARE clause on the sample program from this:
CONTROLS ARE FINAL
F-SR-Vendor-TXT
F-SR-Family-TXT
To this:
CONTROLS ARE FINAL
F-SR-Family-TXT
F-SR-Vendor-TXT
And then ran the report again. Here are the first two pages of that new report. See what happened to the control breaks?
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 1
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
AMD A10
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A10 6800K 5062
5800B 4798
6700 4767
5800K 4677
5700 4251
4657M 3449
5750M 3332
5757M 3253
4600M 3145
5745M 2758
4655M 2505
Ave... 3817.90 ( 11 Vendor CPUs)
Ave... 3817.90 ( 11 Family CPUs)
AMD A4
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A4 6300 2305
5300 2078
5150M 1973
5000 1919
3420 1768
4300M 1685
5300B 1632
3400 1625
3300 1583
3330MX 1343
3310MX 1263
3300M 1237
3305M 1227
____________________________________________
2013/12/24 CPU Benchmark Scores Page: 2
********************************************
** All CPU Data From cpubenchmark.net **
********************************************
A4 3320M 1193
4355M 1169
1200 677
1250 559
Ave... 1484.47 ( 17 Vendor CPUs)
Ave... 1484.47 ( 17 Family CPUs)
AMD A6
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A6 3670 3327
3650 3232
3620 2892
3600 2798
5200 2440
6400K 2384
3430MX 2277
5400K 2174
3410MX 2101
3420M 2078
3500 1995
3400M 1964
5350M 1958
5400B 1906
5357M 1878
1450 1634
4400M 1630
4455M 1296
Ave... 2220.22 ( 18 Vendor CPUs)
Ave... 2220.22 ( 18 Family CPUs)
AMD A8
Family Model Benchmark Score (High to Low)
====== ====== =============================
A8 6600K 4719
____________________________________________
You can trick RWCS into using the PAGE LIMIT values as logical specifications rather than physical ones quite easily — simply include an ASCII form-feed (X'0C') character into your page heading design! Here’s how the sample program shown earlier could be easily modified:
Simply Change This…
01 TYPE IS PAGE HEADING.
05 LINE NUMBER 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Date PIC 9999/99/99.
10 COL 14 VALUE 'CPU Benchmark Scores'.
10 COL 37 VALUE 'Page:'.
10 COL 43 SOURCE PAGE-COUNTER PIC Z9.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 VALUE '**'.
10 COL 6 VALUE 'All CPU Data From ' &
'cpubenchmark.net'.
10 COL 43 VALUE '**'.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
To This…
01 TYPE IS PAGE HEADING.
05 LINE NUMBER 1. *> NEW
10 COL 1 VALUE X’0C’. *> NEW
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1. *> CHANGED
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Date PIC 9999/99/99.
10 COL 14 VALUE 'CPU Benchmark Scores'.
10 COL 37 VALUE 'Page:'.
10 COL 43 SOURCE PAGE-COUNTER PIC Z9.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 VALUE '**'.
10 COL 6 VALUE 'All CPU Data From ' &
'cpubenchmark.net'.
10 COL 43 VALUE '**'.
05 LINE NUMBER PLUS 1.
10 COL 1 SOURCE WS-Starz PIC X(44).
RWCS will still be counting lines to decide when to close off one page and start a new one, but when a new page is started its page heading will physically form-feed the printer when the report is printed. As long as any printer you plan on using supports at least as many physical print lines as what is defined as the PAGE LIMIT value in whatever paper orientation and font you plan on (or are limited to) printing in, you have now divorced your program from the physical realities of the printer!
Of course, whatever software you are using to deliver the printed document to the printer with, must allow the ASCII form-feed character to pass through to the printer.
Program source files should have extensions of .cob or .cbl.
Program file names should match exactly the specification of PROGRAM-ID (including case).
Spaces cannot be included in primary entry-point names and therefore should not be included in program file names.
The GnuCOBOL compiler will translate your COBOL program into C source code, compile that C source code into executable binary form using the C compiler specified when GnuCOBOL was built and link that executable binary into:
This is an executable file directly-executable from the command-line. On Windows computers, this would be an .exe file. On Unix systems, this will be a file with no specific extension, but with execute permissions. This file will include the main program as well as any static-linked subprograms.
This is a single subprogram compiled into object-code form, ready to be linked in with a main program to form a directly-executable program. On windows computers, these generally are .o (object-code) files.
These are dynamically-loadable object code files ready to be invoked from other programs at execution time. On Windows systems, these would be .dll files, while on Unix systems they are typically .so files (OSX uses .dylib).
The GnuCOBOL compiler is named cobc (cobc.exe on a Windows system).
The following describes the syntax and option switches of the cobc command. This information may be displayed by entering the command cobc --help or cobc -h.
GnuCOBOL compiler for most COBOL dialects with lots of extensions as of v3.1.
Usage: cobc [options]... file...
Options:
-h, -help display this help and exit
-V, -version display compiler version and exit
-i, -info display compiler information (build/environment)
and exit
-v, -verbose display compiler version and the commands
invoked by the compiler
-vv, -verbose=2 like -v but additional pass verbose option
to assembler/compiler
-vvv, -verbose=3 like -vv but additional pass verbose option
to linker
-q, -brief reduced displays, commands invoked not shown
-### like -v but commands not executed
-x build an executable program
-m build a dynamically loadable module (default)
-j [<args>], -job[=<args>] run program after build, passing <args>
-std=<dialect> warnings/features for a specific dialect
<dialect> can be one of:
default, cobol2014, cobol2002, cobol85, xopen,
ibm-strict, ibm, mvs-strict, mvs,
mf-strict, mf, bs2000-strict, bs2000,
acu-strict, acu, rm-strict, rm;
see configuration files in directory config
-F, -free use free source format
-fixed use fixed source format (default)
-O, -O2, -O3, -Os enable optimization
-O0 disable optimization
-g enable C compiler debug / stack check / trace
-d, -debug enable all run-time error checking
-o <file> place the output into <file>
-b combine all input files into a single
dynamically loadable module
-E preprocess only; do not compile or link
-C translation only; convert COBOL to C
-S compile only; output assembly file
-c compile and assemble, but do not link
-T <file> generate and place a wide program listing into <file>
-t <file> generate and place a program listing into <file>
--tlines=<lines> specify lines per page in listing, default = 55
-P[=<dir or file>] generate preprocessed program listing (.lst)
-Xref generate cross reference through 'cobxref'
(V. Coen's 'cobxref' must be in path)
{This uses the internal tool only. See 10.1.1.1 for example output.
To use Cobxref you must run this separately. See second example as 10.1.1.2}
-I <directory> add <directory> to copy/include search path
-L <directory> add <directory> to library search path
-l <lib> link the library <lib>
-A <options> add <options> to the C compile phase
-Q <options> add <options> to the C link phase
-D <define> define <define> for COBOL compilation
-K <entry> generate CALL to <entry> as static
-conf=<file> user-defined dialect configuration; see -std
-list-reserved display reserved words
-list-intrinsics display intrinsic functions
-list-mnemonics display mnemonic names
-list-system display system routines
-save-temps[=<dir>] save intermediate files
* default: current directory
-ext <extension> add file extension for resolving COPY
Warning options:
-W enable all warnings
-Wall enable most warnings (all except as noted below)
-Warchaic warn if archaic features are used
-Warithmetic-osvs warn if arithmetic expression precision has changed
-Wcall-params warn about non 01/77 items for CALL parameters
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wcolumn-overflow warn about text after program-text area, FIXED format
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wconstant-expression warn about expressions that always resolve to true/false
-Wcorresponding warn about CORRESPONDING with no matching items
-Werror treat all warnings as errors
-Werror=<warning> treat specified <warning> as error
-Wimplicit-define warn about implicitly defined data items
-Winitial-value warn if initial VALUE clause is ignored
-Wlinkage warn about dangling LINKAGE items
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wno-<warning> disable warning enabled by -W or -Wall
-Wno-dialect do not warn about dialect specific issues
* ALWAYS active
-Wno-pending do not warn if pending features are mentioned
* ALWAYS active
-Wno-unfinished do not warn if unfinished features are used
* ALWAYS active
-Wobsolete warn if obsolete features are used
-Wothers do not warn about different issues
* ALWAYS active
-Woverlap warn about overlapping MOVE of items
-Wparentheses warn about lack of parentheses around AND within OR
-Wpossible-overlap warn about MOVE of items that may overlap depending on variables
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wpossible-truncate warn about possible field truncation
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wprototypes warn about missing FUNCTION prototypes/definitions
-Wredefinition warn about incompatible redefinition of data items
-Wstrict-typing warn strictly about type mismatch
-Wterminator warn about lack of scope terminator END-XXX
* NOT set with -Wall
-Wtruncate warn about field truncation from constant assignments
-Wunreachable warn about likely unreachable statements
* NOT set with -Wall
Compiler options:
-facucomment '$' in indicator area treated as '*',
'|' treated as floating comment
-fcallfh=<function> use external provided EXTFH interface module
<function> for I/O
-fdebugging-line enable debugging lines
* 'D' in indicator column or floating >>D
-fdefaultbyte=<value> initialize fields without VALUE to value
* decimal 0..255 or any quoted character
* default: initialize to picture
-fdump=<scope> dump data fields on abort, <scope> may be
a combination of: ALL, WS, LS, RD, FD, SC
-ffold-call=[UPPER|LOW ER] fold PROGRAM-ID, CALL, CANCEL subject to value
* default: no transformation
-ffold-copy=[UPPER|LOW ER] fold COPY subject to value
* default: no transformation
-fibmcomp sets -fbinary-size=2-4-8 -fsynchronized-clause=ok
-fimplicit-init automatic initialization of the COBOL runtime system
-finline-intrinsic whe n possible resolve intrinsic FUNCTIONs at compile time
-fintrinsics=[ALL|intr insic function name(,name,...)]
intrinsics to be used without FUNCTION keyword
-fmax-errors=<number> maximum number of errors to report before
compilation is aborted
* default: 100
-fmf-files Sequential & Relative files will match Micro Focus format
-fmfcomment '*' or '/' in column 1 treated as comment
* FIXED format only
-fno-gen-c-decl-static -call disable generation of C function declarations
for subroutines with static CALL
-fno-ibmcomp sets -fbinary-size=1--8 -fsynchronized-clause=ignore
-fno-recursive-check disable check of recursive program call;
effectively compiling as RECURSIVE program
-fno-remove-unreachabl e disable remove of unreachable code
* turned off by -g
-fno-theaders suppress all headers and output of compilation
options from listing while keeping page breaks
-fno-tmessages suppress warning and error summary from listing
-fno-tsource suppress source from listing
-fnotrunc allow numeric field overflow
* non-ANSI behaviour
-fodoslide adjust items following OCCURS DEPENDING
* implies -fcomplex-odo
-foptional-file treat all files as OPTIONAL
* unless NOT OPTIONAL specified
-fsign=[ASCII|EBCDIC] define display sign representation
* default: machine native
-fsingle-quote use a single quote (apostrophe) for QUOTE
* default: double quote
-fsource-location generate source location code
* turned on by -debug/-g/-ftraceall
-fstack-check PERFORM stack checking
* turned on by -debug or -g
-fstatic-call output static function calls for the CALL statement
-fsyntax-only syntax error checking only; don't emit any output
-ftrace generate trace code
* scope: executed SECTION/PARAGRAPH
-ftraceall generate trace code
* scope: executed SECTION/PARAGRAPH/STATEMENTS
* turned on by -debug
-ftsymbols specify symbols in listing
-fwrite-after use AFTER 1 for WRITE of LINE SEQUENTIAL
* default: BEFORE 1
Compiler dialect configuration options:
-faccept-auto Set WITH AUTO clause as default for ACCEPT dest-item,
instead of WITH TAB
-faccept-display-extensions=<support>
Extensions to ACCEPT and DISPLAY
-faccept-update Set WITH UPDATE clause as default for ACCEPT dest-item,
instead of WITH NO UPDATE
-facu-literals=<support>
ACUCOBOL-GT literals (#B #O #H #X)
-falter-statement=<support>
ALTER statement
-farithmetic-osvs Limit precision in intermediate results to precision
of final result (less accurate)
-fassign-clause=<value>
Set way of interpreting ASSIGN
-fbinary-byteorder=<value>
Binary byte order, may be one of: native, big-endian
-fbinary-comp-1 COMP-1 is a 16-bit signed integer
-fbinary-size=<value> Binary byte size - defines the allocated bytes according
to PIC, may be one of: 2-4-8, 1-2-4-8, 1--8
-fbinary-sync-clause=<support>
BINARY-SHORT/LONG/DOUBLE SYNCHRONIZED clause
-fbinary-truncate Numeric truncation according to ANSI
-fcall-convention-linkage=<support>
Specifying call-convention by WITH ... LINKAGE
-fcall-convention-mnemonic=<support>
Specifying call-convention by mnemonic
-fcall-overflow=<support>
OVERFLOW clause for CALL
-fcomment-paragraphs=<support>
Comment paragraphs in IDENTIFICATION DIVISION (AUTHOR,
DATE-WRITTEN, ...)
-fcomplex-odo Allow complex OCCURS DEPENDING ON
-fconsole-is-crt Assume CONSOLE IS CRT if not set otherwise
-fconstant-01=<support>
Constant with level 01 CONSTANT AS/FROM item
-fconstant-78=<support>
Constant with level 78 item (note: has left to right
precedence in expressions)
-fconstant-folding Evaluate constant expressions at compile time
-fcontinue-after=<support>
AFTER phrase in CONTINUE statement
-fdata-records-clause=<support>
DATA-RECORDS clause
-fdebugging-mode=<support>
DEBUGGING MODE and debugging indicator
-fdefine-constant-directive=<support>
Allow >> DEFINE CONSTANT var AS literal
-fdepending-on-not-fixed=<support>
Depending-on-not-fixed
-fdisplay-special-fig-consts
Special behaviour of
DISPLAY SPACE/ALL X'01'/ALL X'02'/ALL X'07'
-fentry-statement=<support>
ENTRY statement
-ffilename-mapping Resolve file names at run time using environment variables.
-ffree-redefines-position=<support>
REDEFINES clause not following entry-name in definition
-fgoto-entry=<support>
ENTRY FOR GOTO and GOTO ENTRY statements
-fgoto-statement-without-name=<support>
GOTO statement without name
-fhexadecimal-boolean=<support>
Hexadecimal-boolean literals (BX'A')
-fhexadecimal-national-literals=<support>
Hexadecimal-national literals (NX'265E')
-fhostsign Allow hexadecimal value 'F' for NUMERIC test of signed
PACKED DECIMAL field
-fhp-octal-literals=<support>
HP COBOL octal literals (%377)
-fincorrect-conf-sec-order=<support>
Incorrect order of CONFIGURATION SECTION paragraphs
-findirect-redefines Allow REDEFINES to other than last equal level number
-flabel-records-clause=<support>
LABEL-RECORDS clause
-flarger-redefines-ok
Allow larger REDEFINES items
-flength-in-data-division
Length in data division
-fline-col-zero-default
Assume the first item in a field DISPLAY goes at
LINE 0 COL 0, not LINE 1 COL 1
-flisting-statements=<support>
Listing-directive statements EJECT, SKIP1, SKIP2, SKIP3
-fliteral-length=<number>
Maximum literal size in general
-fmemory-size-clause=<support>
MEMORY-SIZE clause
-fmissing-statement=<support>
Missing statement (e.g. empty IF / PERFORM)
-fmove-figurative-constant-to-numeric=<support>
Move figurative constants to numeric
-fmove-figurative-quote-to-numeric=<support>
Move figurative constant QUOTE to numeric
-fmove-figurative-space-to-numeric=<support>
Move figurative constant SPACE to numeric
-fmove-ibm MOVE operates as on IBM (left to right, byte by byte),
otherwise no propagating move
-fmove-non-numeric-lit-to-numeric-is-zero
Imply zero in move of non-numeric literal to numeric items
-fmove-noninteger-to-alphanumeric=<support>
Move noninteger to alphanumeric
-fmultiple-file-tape-clause=<support>
MULTIPLE-FILE-TAPE clause
-fnational-character-literals=<support>
Non-standard national literals (NC'UTF-16 string')
-fnational-literals=<support>
National literals (N'UTF-16 string')
-fnext-sentence-phrase=<support>
NEXT SENTENCE phrase
-fno-echo-means-secure
NO-ECHO
Hides input with asterisks like SECURE
-fnonnumeric-with-numeric-group-usage=<support>
Non-Numeric item with Numeric Group USAGE clause
-fnot-exception-before-exception=<support>
NOT ON EXCEPTION before ON EXCEPTION
-fnumeric-boolean=<support>
Boolean literals (B'1010')
-fnumeric-literal-length=1..38
Maximum numeric literal size
-fnumeric-value-for-edited-item=<support>
Numeric literals in VALUE clause of numeric-edited items
-foccurs-max-length-without-subscript
Occurs max length without subscript
-fodo-without-to=<support>
OCCURS DEPENDING ON without to
-fpadding-character-clause=<support>
PADDING CHARACTER clause
-fperform-osvs exit point of any currently executing perform is recognized
if reached
-fperform-varying-without-by=<support>
PERFORM VARYING without BY phrase (implies BY 1)
-fpic-length=<number> Maximum number of characters allowed in the PICTURE
character-string
-fpretty-display Alternate formatting of numeric fields
-fprogram-name-redefinition
Program names don't lead to a reserved identifier
-fprogram-prototypes=<support>
CALL/CANCEL with program-prototype-name
-frecord-delim-with-fixed-recs=<support>
RECORD DELIMITER clause on file with fixed-length records
-frecord-delimiter=<support>
RECORD DELIMITER clause
-frecords-mismatch-record-clause=<support>
Record sizes does not match RECORD clause
-freference-out-of-declaratives=<support>
References to sections not in DECLARATIVES from within
DECLARATIVES
-frelax-level-hierarchy
Allow non-matching level numbers
-frelax-syntax-checks Allow certain syntax variations (e.g. REDEFINES position)
-frenames-uncommon-levels=<support>
RENAMES of 01-, 66- and 77-level items
-freserved-words=<value>
Use of complete/fixed reserved words
-fscreen-section-rules=<value>
Which compiler's rules to apply to SCREEN SECTION
item clauses
-fsection-segments=<support>
Section segments
-fselect-working Require ASSIGN USING items to be in WORKING-STORAGE
-fsequential-delimiters=<support>
BINARY-SEQUENTIAL and LINE-SEQUENTIAL phrases in
RECORD DELIMITER
-fsticky-linkage LINKAGE-SECTION items remain allocated between invocations
-fstop-identifier-statement=<support>
STOP-identifier statement
-fstop-literal-statement=<support>
STOP-literal statement
-fsymbolic-constant=<support>
Constants defined in SPECIAL-NAMES
-fsynchronized-clause=<support>
SYNCHRONIZED clause
-ftab-width=1..12 Set number of spaces that are assumed for tabs
-ftext-column=72..255 Set right margin for source (fixed format only)
-ftitle-statement=<support>
Listing-directive statement TITLE
-ftop-level-occurs-clause=<support>
OCCURS clause on top-level
-fuse-for-debugging=<support>
USE FOR DEBUGGING
-fvalue-of-clause=<support>
VALUE-OF clause
-fword-continuation=<support>
Continuation of COBOL words
-fword-length=1..63 Maximum word-length for COBOL (= programmer defined) words
-fxml-generate-extra-phrases=<support>
XML GENERATE's phrases other than COUNT IN
-fzero-length-literals=<support>
Zero-length literals, e.g. '@w{}' and ""
where <support> is one of the following:
'ok', 'warning', 'archaic', 'obsolete', 'skip', 'ignore', 'error',
'unconformable'
-fnot-reserved=<word> Word to be taken out of the reserved words list
-freserved=<word> Word to be added to reserved words list
-freserved=<word>:<alias>
Word to be added to reserved words list as alias
-fnot-register=<word> Special register to disable
-fregister=<word> Special register to enable
Each file specified on the cobc command constitutes a
Compilation Unit. A compilation unit may be a single GnuCOBOL program — with or without nested subprograms(see Independent vs Contained vs Nested Subprograms) — or multiple GnuCOBOL programs, separated by END PROGRAM or END FUNCTION marker lines, as appropriate. See Independent vs Contained vs Nested Subprograms, for some examples of these marker lines.
A compilation unit may also be a C-language source program, recognized as such by having a file extension of .c or an assembly-language program, recognized by its file extension of .s. In such a case, COBOL compilation of that file will be bypassed by the cobc command; instead, the file will be passed directly to the C compiler or assembler (executed automatically by cobc).
A compilation unit may also be an object-code module (output from the C compiler), recognized as such by having a file extension of .o. In these situations, all compilation will be bypassed, and the object code will be “bound” into the generated executable by the linker (an ld command executed internally by the cobc command).
Pre-compiled object-code subprograms may be automatically located by the GnuCOBOL compiler and the loader by using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH compilation-time environment variable
(see Compilation Time Environment Variables). If they are locatable through that environment variable, they need not be named on the cobc command.
The collection of compilation units supplied on a single cobc execution constitute a
Compilation Group. All executable code produced from a single compilation group will be collected together into a single executable file, whose filename will be the same as that of the first compilation unit specified on the cobc command.
The simplest mode of compilation is to generate a single executable file from one or more GnuCOBOL source files:
cobc -x mainprog.cbl sub1.cbl sub2.cbl
The main program must be the first program found in the first compilation unit (mainprog.cbl). The remainder of that compilation unit as well as the rest of the files in the compilation group (sub1.cbl and sub2.cbl) must be independent and/or contained subprograms (see Independent vs Contained vs Nested Subprograms).
This command assumes that all source files are in the directory from which the cobc command was executed. You are, of course, free to include full pathnames with any filename, if necessary.
With the
-x switch on the compiler command, a single directly-executable executable file (UNIX, Windows/Cygwin, OSX) or “exe” file (Windows, Windows/MinGW) will be generated. This executable file has the compiled code for all COBOL programs contained within the compilation group specified on the cobc command included in the file.
Any subroutines or user-defined functions that weren’t included in any of the source files comprising the compilation group will be treated as dynamically loadable subprograms (see Dynamic vs Static Subprograms).
Optionally, the
-o switch may be used in addition to -x to specify the name of the generated executable file. If -o switch is not specified, the filename of the 1st compilation unit will be used as the name of the executable file. The appropriate extension for the generated file (.exe, on a Windows computer, for example) will be added to the filename that is explicitly specified or implicitly assumed for the output file.
Compilations may be performed to generate dynamically-loadable modules (or dynamically-loadable libraries, as they are frequently called). These compilations are performed by using the -m switch instead of -x switch:
cobc -m mainprog.cbl sub1.cbl sub2.cbl
When the -m switch is used, an operating-system-specific dynamically-loadable module is generated for each individual compilation unit, using the filename of each compilation unit as its module filename and either an extension of .so (UNIX, Windows/Cygwin), .dylib (OSX) or .dll (Windows, Windows/MinGW).
You may compile GnuCOBOL subprograms into assembler source code which can then be assembled and linked with a main program when that main program is compiled. To create such an assembler source file, compile the subprogram(s) as follows:
cobc -S sprog1.cbl
The above generates an assembler source file named sprog1.s. If you have multiple subprograms to compile this way, just string their file names out on the command. Each will be translated to its own assembler source file.
Later, when you wish to compile a calling program and combine any needed assembly language subroutines in (as static subroutines — see Dynamic vs Static Subprograms), use a command such as this:
cobc -x mainprog.cbl sprog1.s
The following shows the output from using -Xref.
Using the internal -Xref as extra options -X -t prog.list: GnuCOBOL 3.1-dev.0 prog.cbl Fri Dec 6 14:17:52 2019 Page 0001 LINE PG/LN A...B............................................................ 000001 000001 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 000002 000002 PROGRAM-ID. prog. 000003 000003 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. 000004 000004 CONFIGURATION SECTION. 000005 000005 DATA DIVISION. 000006 000006 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 000007 000007 COPY 'values.cpy'. 000001C 000001 78 I VALUE 20. 000002C 000002 78 J VALUE 5000. 000003C 000003 78 M VALUE 5. 000008 000008 01 SETUP-REC. 000009 000009 05 FL1 PIC X(04). 000010 000010 05 FL2 PIC ZZZZZ. 000011 000011 05 FL3 PIC 9(04). 000012 000012 05 FL4 PIC 9(08) COMP. 000013 000013 05 FL5 PIC 9(04) COMP-4. 000014 000014 05 FL6 PIC Z,ZZZ.99. 000015 000015 05 FL7 PIC S9(05) SIGN LEADING SEPARATE. 000016 000016 05 FL8 PIC X(04). 000017 000017 05 FL9 REDEFINES FL8 PIC 9(04). 000018 000018 05 FLA. 000019 000019 10 FLB OCCURS I TIMES. 000020 000020 15 FLC PIC X(02). 000021 000021 10 FLD PIC X(20). 000022 000022 05 FLD1 PIC X(100). 000023 000025 05 FLD3 PIC X(3). 000024 000026 05 FLD4 PIC X(4). 000025 000023 05 FLD2 OCCURS M TO J TIMES DEPENDING ON FL5. 000026 000024 10 FILLER PIC X(01). 000027 000027 PROCEDURE DIVISION. 000028 000028 STOP RUN. GnuCOBOL 3.1-dev.0 prog.cbl Fri Dec 6 14:17:52 2019 Page 0002 NAME DEFINED REFERENCES SETUP-REC 8 referenced by child FL1 9 not referenced FL2 10 not referenced FL3 11 not referenced FL4 12 not referenced FL5 13 25 FL6 14 not referenced FL7 15 not referenced FL8 16 not referenced FL9 17 not referenced FLA 18 not referenced FLB 19 not referenced FLC 20 not referenced FLD 21 not referenced FLD1 22 not referenced FLD3 23 not referenced FLD4 24 not referenced FLD2 25 not referenced GnuCOBOL 3.1-dev.0 prog.cbl Fri Dec 6 14:17:52 2019 Page 0003 LABEL DEFINED REFERENCES E prog 27 0 warnings in compilation group 0 errors in compilation group
This program is found in the contrib area or by itself in Sourceforge under its own name (cobxref).
The following shows the output from using cobxref with the same program example.
Using cobxref with command cobxref prog.cbl :
ACS Cobol Xref v2.02.02 Dictionary File for PROG 06/12/2019 14:19:09:39 Page 1
1 000001 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
2 000002 PROGRAM-ID. prog.
3 000003 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
4 000004 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
5 000005 DATA DIVISION.
6 000006 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
7 000007*COPY 'values.cpy'.
8 000001 78 I VALUE 20.
9 000002 78 J VALUE 5000.
10 000003 78 M VALUE 5.
11 000008 01 SETUP-REC.
12 000009 05 FL1 PIC X(04).
13 000010 05 FL2 PIC ZZZZZ.
14 000011 05 FL3 PIC 9(04).
15 000012 05 FL4 PIC 9(08) COMP.
16 000013 05 FL5 PIC 9(04) COMP-4.
17 000014 05 FL6 PIC Z,ZZZ.99.
18 000015 05 FL7 PIC S9(05) SIGN LEADING SEPARATE.
19 000016 05 FL8 PIC X(04).
20 000017 05 FL9 REDEFINES FL8 PIC 9(04).
21 000018 05 FLA.
22 000019 10 FLB OCCURS I TIMES.
23 000020 15 FLC PIC X(02).
24 000021 10 FLD PIC X(20).
25 000022 05 FLD1 PIC X(100).
26 000025 05 FLD3 PIC X(3).
27 000026 05 FLD4 PIC X(4).
28 000023 05 FLD2 OCCURS M TO J TIMES DEPENDING ON FL5.
29 000024 10 FILLER PIC X(01).
30 000027 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
31 000028 STOP RUN.
32 *>>>Info: Total Copy Depth Used = 02
ACS Cobol Xref v2.02.02 Dictionary File for PROG 06/12/2019 14:19:09:39 Page 2
Symbols of Module: PROG (PROG)
------------------------------
Data Section (WORKING-STORAGE) Defn Locations
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------
FL1 000012W
FL2 000013W
FL3 000014W
FL4 000015W
FL5 000016W 000028
FL6 000017W
FL7 000018W
FL8 000019W 000020
FL9 000020W
FLA 000021W
FLB 000022W
FLC 000023W
FLD 000024W
FLD1 000025W
FLD2 000028W
FLD3 000026W
FLD4 000027W
I 000008W 000022
J 000009W 000028
M 000010W 000028
SETUP-REC 000011W
ACS Cobol Xref v2.02.02 Dictionary File for PROG 06/12/2019 14:19:09:39 Page 3
Symbols of Module: PROG (PROG)
------------------------------
Procedure Defn Locations
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------
None
ACS Cobol Xref v2.02.02 Dictionary File for PROG 06/12/2019 14:19:09:39 Page 4
Symbols of Module: PROG (PROG)
------------------------------
Unreferenced Working Storage Symbols
FL1 000012W
FL2 000013W
FL3 000014W
FL4 000015W
FL6 000017W
FL7 000018W
FL9 000020W
FLA 000021W
FLB 000022W
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SETUP-REC 000011W
ACS Cobol Xref v2.02.02 Dictionary File for PROG 06/12/2019 14:19:09:39 Page 5
Symbols of Module: PROG (PROG)
------------------------------
Unreferenced Procedures
None
The following are the various environment variables that can play a role in the compilation of GnuCOBOL programs.
COB_CCSet to the name of the C compiler you wish GnuCOBOL to use.
Use this feature at your own risk – you should always use the c compiler your gnucobol build was generated for.
COB_CFLAGSSet to any switches that you’d like to pass on to the C compiler from the cobc compiler (in addition to any that cobc will specify).
COB_CONFIG_DIRSet to the path to the folder where GnuCOBOL config files are kept.
COB_COPY_DIRIf copybooks your program needs are not stored in the same directory as your program, set this environment variable to the folder in which the copybooks may be found (IBM mainframe programmers will recognize this as SYSLIB).
COB_LDADDSet to any additional linker switches (ld) that can specify where standard libraries that must be linked with the program can be found. The default is "" (empty).
COB_LDFLAGSSet to any linker (ld) switches that you’d like to pass on to the C compiler from the cobc compiler (in addition to any that cobc will specify).
COB_LIBSSet to any linker switches (ld) that specify where standard libraries that must be linked with the program can be found.
COBCPYThis environment variable provides an additional means of specifying where copybooks may be found by the compiler (see also COB_COPY_DIR, above).
LD_LIBRARY_PATHIf you are planning on using static-linked subroutine libraries, set this variable to the path of the directory containing your libraries.
TMPDIRTMPSet to a directory/folder appropriate to create temporary files in. The intermediate working files created by the compiler will be created here (and deleted once they’re no longer needed).
The variable TMPDIR is checked for a valid path first; if that isn’t set, then TMP is checked.
On a Windows system, the TMP environment variable is normally set for you when you logon. If you wish to use a different temporary folder, you may set TMPDIR yourself and have no fear of disrupting other Windows software that relies on TMP.
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GnuCOBOL defines compilation variables when certain conditions are true.
If the condition associated with a variable is false, the variable is not defined during compilations.
DEBUGThe -d debug flag is specified.
EXECUTABLEThe module being compiled contains the main program.
GCCOMPThe size of a COMP item is determined according to the GnuCOBOL scheme, where for a PICTURE of length:
item has 1 byte
item has 2 bytes
item has 4 bytes
item has 8 bytes.
GNUCOBOLGnuCOBOL is compiling the source unit.
HOSTSIGNSA signed packed-decimal item’s value may be considered NUMERIC if the sign has value X"F".
IBMCOMPThe size of a COMP item is determined according to the IBM scheme, where for a PICTURE of length:
item has 2 bytes
item has 4 bytes
item has 8 bytes.
MODULEThe module being compiled does not contain the main program.
NOHOSTSIGNSA signed packed-decimal item’s value may not be considered
NUMERICif the sign has value X"F".
NOIBMCOMPThe size of a COMP item is not determined according to the IBM scheme.
NOSTICKYLINKAGESticky-linkage (linkage-section items remaining allocated between invocations) is not enabled.
NOTRUNCNumeric data items are truncated according to their internal representation.
P64Pointers are greater than 32 bits long
STICKY-LINKAGESticky-linkage (linkage-section items remaining allocated between invocations) is enabled.
TRUNCNumeric data items are truncated according to their PICTURE clauses.
The GnuCOBOL compiler will attempt to locate copybooks by searching for them in the following folders. The search will occur in the sequence shown below, and will terminate once a copybook is found.
COPY statement (see COPY).
COBCPY compilation-time environment variable
(see Compilation Time Environment Variables).
A single folder may be named or multiple folders may be specified, separated by a system-appropriate delimiter character. When multiple folders are specified, they will be searched in the order they are named on the environment variable.
If the GnuCOBOL compiler you are using was built to utilize a native Windows environment, use a semicolon (‘;’) as the delimiter character.
If, however, the GnuCOBOL compiler was built for a Unix, OSX or Linux environment, or was built for a Windows environment utilizing either the Cygwin or MinGW Unix emulators, use a colon character (‘:’) as the delimiter.
As each of the above folders is searched for a copybook — COPY XXXXXXXX., for example — the GnuCOBOL compiler will attempt to locate the copybook file by any of the following names, in the sequence shown:
XXXXXXXX.CPY
XXXXXXXX.CBL
XXXXXXXX.COB
XXXXXXXX.cpy
XXXXXXXX.cbl
XXXXXXXX.cob
XXXXXXXX
The COPY statement is case-sensitive on UNIX systems; COPY copybookname and COPY COPYBOOKNAME will both fail to locate the CopyBookName copybook on a UNIX system.
Windows implementations of GnuCOBOL may, or may not, be similarly case sensitive with regard to copybook names, depending upon the Windows version and GnuCOBOL build options — it is safest to simply treat the COPY command as case-sensitive in all environments.
It is possible, however, to automatically cause all COPY statements to “fold” the names of all copybooks to upper-case by specifying the
-ffold-copy switch with the upper option (i.e. --fold-copy=upper) to the GnuCOBOL compiler. Similarly, names could be folded to lower-case by using the lower option (i.e. --fold-copy=lower. If copybook libraries are maintained entirely using upper- or lower-case file names and extensions, either of these options will allow copybooks to be found regardless of how the programmer entered their names on COPY statements.
Case-folding may also be turned on and off within the program source code using the CDF >>SET statement (see >>SET).
GnuCOBOL uses compiler configuration files to define various options that will control the compilation process. These configuration files are specified using the
-conf switch compilation switch and are found in the folder defined by the COB_CONFIG_DIR compilation-time environment variable
(see Compilation Time Environment Variables).
If this is not defined under *nix it will default to /usr/local/share/gnucobol/config.
The following is a verbatim listing of the default configuration file (the one used if you don’t specify the -conf switch), just to show you the types of settings that may appear:
# GnuCOBOL compiler configuration # # Copyright (C) 2001-2012, 2014-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. # Written by Keisuke Nishida, Roger While, Simon Sobisch, Edward Hart # # Value: any string name: "GnuCOBOL" # Value: enum standard-define 0 # CB_STD_OC = 0, # CB_STD_MF, # CB_STD_IBM, # CB_STD_MVS, # CB_STD_BS2000, # CB_STD_ACU, # CB_STD_85, # CB_STD_2002, # CB_STD_2014 # Value: int tab-width: 8 text-column: 72 # Maximum word-length for COBOL words / Programmer defined words # Be aware that GC checks the word length against COB_MAX_WORDLEN # first (currently 61) word-length: 61 # Maximum literal size in general literal-length: 8191 # Maximum numeric literal size (absolute maximum: 38) numeric-literal-length: 38 # Maximum number of characters allowed in the character-string (max. 255) pic-length: 255 # Value: 'mf', 'ibm' # assign-clause: mf # If yes, file names are resolved at run time using # environment variables. # For example, given ASSIGN TO "DATAFILE", the file name will be # 1. the value of environment variable 'DD_DATAFILE' or # 2. the value of environment variable 'dd_DATAFILE' or # 3. the value of environment variable 'DATAFILE' or # 4. the literal "DATAFILE" # If no, the value of the assign clause is the file name. # filename-mapping: yes # Alternate formatting of numeric fields pretty-display: yes # Allow complex OCCURS DEPENDING ON complex-odo: no # Allow REDEFINES to other than last equal level number indirect-redefines: no # Binary byte size - defines the allocated bytes according to PIC # Value: signed unsigned bytes # ------ -------- ----- # '2-4-8' 1 - 4 same 2 # 5 - 9 same 4 # 10 - 18 same 8 # # '1-2-4-8' 1 - 2 same 1 # 3 - 4 same 2 # 5 - 9 same 4 # 10 - 18 same 8 # # '1--8' 1 - 2 1 - 2 1 # 3 - 4 3 - 4 2 # 5 - 6 5 - 7 3 # 7 - 9 8 - 9 4 # 10 - 11 10 - 12 5 # 12 - 14 13 - 14 6 # 15 - 16 15 - 16 7 # 17 - 18 17 - 18 8 # binary-size: 1-2-4-8 # Numeric truncation according to ANSI binary-truncate: yes # Binary byte order # Value: 'native', 'big-endian' binary-byteorder: big-endian # Allow larger REDEFINES items larger-redefines-ok: no # Allow certain syntax variations (eg. REDEFINES position) relax-syntax-checks: no # Perform type OSVS - If yes, the exit point of any currently # executing perform is recognized if reached. perform-osvs: no # Compute intermediate decimal results like IBM OSVS arithmetic-osvs: no # MOVE like IBM (mvc); left to right, byte by byte move-ibm: no # If yes, linkage-section items remain allocated # between invocations. sticky-linkage: no # If yes, allow non-matching level numbers relax-level-hierarchy: no # If yes, evaluate constant expressions at compile time constant-folding: yes # Allow Hex 'F' for NUMERIC test of signed PACKED DECIMAL field hostsign: no # If yes, set WITH UPDATE clause as default for ACCEPT dest-item, # except if WITH NO UPDATE clause is used accept-update: no # If yes, set WITH AUTO clause as default for ACCEPT dest-item, # except if WITH TAB clause is used accept-auto: no # If yes, DISPLAY's and ACCEPT's are, by default, done on the CRT (i.e., # using curses). console-is-crt: no # If yes, allow redefinition of the current program's name. This prevents # its use in a prototype-format CALL/CANCEL statement. program-name-redefinition: yes # If yes, NO ECHO/NO-ECHO/OFF is the same as SECURE (hiding input with # asterisks, not spaces). no-echo-means-secure: no # Dialect features # Value: 'ok', 'warning', 'archaic', 'obsolete', 'skip', 'ignore', 'error', # 'unconformable' alter-statement: obsolete comment-paragraphs: obsolete call-overflow: archaic data-records-clause: obsolete debugging-mode: ok use-for-debugging: obsolete listing-statements: skip # may be a user-defined word title-statement: skip # may be a user-defined word entry-statement: ok goto-statement-without-name: obsolete label-records-clause: obsolete memory-size-clause: obsolete move-noninteger-to-alphanumeric: error move-figurative-constant-to-numeric: archaic move-figurative-quote-to-numeric: obsolete multiple-file-tape-clause: obsolete next-sentence-phrase: archaic odo-without-to: warning padding-character-clause: obsolete section-segments: ignore stop-literal-statement: obsolete stop-identifier-statement: obsolete synchronized-clause: ok top-level-occurs-clause: ok value-of-clause: obsolete numeric-boolean: ok hexadecimal-boolean: ok national-literals: ok hexadecimal-national-literals: ok acu-literals: unconformable word-continuation: warning not-exception-before-exception: ok accept-display-extensions: ok renames-uncommon-levels: ok constant-01: ok constant-78: ok program-prototypes: ok reference-out-of-declaratives: warning numeric-value-for-edited-item: ok incorrect-conf-sec-order: warning define-constant-directive: archaic # use complete word list; synonyms and exceptions are specified below reserved-words: default # not-reserved: # Value: Word to be taken out of the reserved words list not-reserved: TERMINAL # reserved: # Entries of the form word-1=word-2 define word-1 as an alias for default # reserved word word-2. No spaces are allowed around the equal sign. reserved: AUTO-SKIP=AUTO reserved: AUTOTERMINATE=AUTO reserved: BACKGROUND-COLOUR=BACKGROUND-COLOR reserved: BEEP=BELL reserved: BINARY-INT=BINARY-LONG reserved: BINARY-LONG-LONG=BINARY-DOUBLE reserved: EMPTY-CHECK=REQUIRED reserved: EQUALS=EQUAL reserved: FOREGROUND-COLOUR=FOREGROUND-COLOR reserved: INITIALISE=INITIALIZE reserved: INITIALISED=INITIALIZED reserved: LENGTH-CHECK=FULL reserved: ORGANISATION=ORGANIZATION reserved: SYNCHRONISED=SYNCHRONIZED reserved: TIMEOUT=TIME-OUT
Once GnuCOBOL programs have been compiled into either directly-executable programs (created via the -x switch) or dynamically-loadable libraries (created via the -m switch), those programs may be executed from any shell environment. The exact manner in which the two are executed will differ, as described in the upcoming sections.
GnuCOBOL programs compiled with the -x switch will be generated as directly-executable programs. For example, a native Windows or Windows/MinGW build of GnuCOBOL will generate an .exe file when the -x switch switch is specified to the compiler.
On Unix, OSX, or Windows/Cygwin builds, the -x switch switch will generate an executable binary file, usually with no particular extension unless one is explicitly requested of the compiler via the -o switch.
On a UNIX system this means the programs may be executed from a command shell such as bash, csh, ksh and so forth. When a GnuCOBOL program runs on a Windows system, it runs within a console window (i.e. cmd.exe). OSX versions of GnuCOBOL programs run within a terminal.app window.
Interactions between the program and the user will take place using the standard input, standard output and standard error streams. Any screen section I/O performed by the program will take place within the terminal window.
Direct program execution syntax is
[path]program [arguments].
For example:
/usr/local/printaccount ACCT=6625378
or
C:\\Users\\Me\\Documents\\Programs\\printaccount.exe ACCT=6625378
As discussed previously, dynamically-loadable libraries are created via the compiler’s -m switch. Once so created, the program(s) in these libraries are executed from the command line (via the GnuCOBOL cobcrun utility), or as dynamically-loadable subprograms.
It is possible to generate executable modules for all GnuCOBOL programs, not just subprograms, by choosing to use the -m switch option to specify the loader output format, even for main programs.
Some may prefer to compile their GnuCOBOL main programs into these dynamically-loadable modules in the interests of using the same general compilation command for all programs without having to think “Is it a main program or a subprogram?”.
Main programs compiled in this manner should be executed as follows:
[path]cobcrun program [arguments]
Do not specify the .so or .dll extension on the program name. The program value must exactly match the primary entry-point name of the main program (including upper- and lower-case letters), unless you are planning on using Call Folding (see Dynamically Loaded Subprograms).
The general usage and syntax of cobcrun is as follows as issued by running cobcrun -h (or –help) :
COBOL driver program for GnuCOBOL modules
Usage: cobcrun [options] PROGRAM [parameter ...]
or: cobcrun options
Options:
-h, -help display this help and exit
-V, -version display cobcrun and runtime version and exit
-i, -info display runtime information (build/environment)
-c <file>, -config=<file> set runtime configuration from <file>
-r, -runtime-conf display current runtime configuration
(value and origin for all settings)
-M <module>, -module=<module> set entry point module name and/or load path
where -M module prepends any directory to the
dynamic link loader library search path
and any basename to the module preload list
(COB_LIBRARY_PATH and/or COB_PRELOAD)
Here are two examples of using cobcrun. First, on a Unix, OSX or Windows/Cygwin system:
cd /usr/local cobcrun printaccount acct=6625378
Or, on a Native Windows or Windows/MinGW system:
cd C:\Users\Me\Documents\Programs cobcrun printaccount.exe acct=6625378
Note how the cobcrun command does not allow a path to be specified with the program name — the directory in which the programs dynamically loadable module exists must either be the current directory or must be defined in the current PATH.
Dynamically-loaded subprograms are executed (from a COBOL syntax point of view) just like any other subprograms. What makes them unique, however, is that they are loaded into memory only when they are actually used the first time during the execution of a program.
When a dynamically-loadable module needs to be loaded (because it is not already in memory from a previous subprogram execution), the dynamically-loadable library will be sought in the same directory from which the main program was loaded. If it cannot be found there, each directory named in the
PATH run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) will be searched. If it was not located in any of those directories, the library specified by the
COB_LIBRARY_PATH run-time environment variable will be searched. Finally, if it still cannot be located, execution will be terminated with an error message (libcob: Cannot find module ’xxxxxxxx’).
The process of locating dynamically-loadable modules is case-sensitive on UNIX systems; CALL "dynsub" and CALL "DYNSUB" will both fail to locate the DynSub.so library on a UNIX system.
Windows implementations of GnuCOBOL may, or may not, be similarly case sensitive with regard to library names, depending upon the Windows version and GnuCOBOL build options — it is safest to simply treat library names as case-sensitive in all environments.
It is possible, however, to automatically cause all library names to ’fold’ to upper-case by specifying the
-ffold-call switch with the “upper” option (i.e. --fold-call=upper) to the GnuCOBOL compiler. Similarly, library names could be folded to lower-case by using the “lower” option (i.e. --fold-call=lower. If libraries are maintained entirely using upper- or lower-case file names, either of these options will allow libraries to be found regardless of how the programmer entered their names on CALL statements.
See Sub-Programming, for a complete discussion of sub-programming.
The following is a list of the various environment variables that can play a role in the execution of GnuCOBOL programs.
COB_DISPLAY_WARNINGSIf set to a value of ‘Y’, any run-time warnings (such as noting the implicit closing of open files when a GOBACK statement (see GOBACK) or STOP statement (see STOP) with the RUN option is executed) will be displayed. Any other value for this environment variable (including not setting the variable at all) will suppress such messages.
COB_LIBRARY_PATHAt runtime, GnuCOBOL will attempt to locate and load any application dynamically-loadable libraries using from the directory in which the program executable was found or, if it wasn’t found there, using the PATH environment variable. If these library files could be somewhere else, specify the directory path using this variable.
COB_LOAD_CASEIf set to either UPPER or LOWER, this environment variable will internally convert referenced entry-point names to either upper- or lower-case before initiating searches for dynamically-loadable modules. The UPPER and LOWER values of the environment variable are actually case-insensitive.
COB_PHYSICAL_CANCELIf set to ‘Y’, ‘y’ or ‘1’, a CANCEL statement (see CANCEL) will physically unload a subprogram dynamically-loadable module.
If set to anything else, a CANCEL statement (see CANCEL) logically unloads a module so that subsequent use will re-initialize the module as if it had actually been reloaded, but the overhead of actually reloading the module will be avoided.
COB_PRE_LOADIf set to any non-null value, this variable will cause all dynamically-loadable libraries to be loaded when the program begins execution (rather than searching for and loading the module upon first use).
COB_SET_DEBUGIf a USE FOR DEBUGGING (see DECLARATIVES) section exists, the code within it will be disabled unless this environment variable is set to a value of ‘Y’, ‘y’ or ‘1’.
COB_SET_TRACEIf the
-ftrace switch (trace procedures) or
-ftraceall switch (trace procedures and statements) was used when the program was compiled, setting this environment variable to a value of ‘Y’ will activate the trace at the point the program begins execution. Setting this environment variable to any other value (or never setting it to ANY value) will disable tracing.
Tracing, if configured by one of the two switches described above, can also be controlled via the the READY TRACE statement (see READY TRACE) and RESET TRACE statement (see RESET TRACE).
If COB_SET_TRACE is set to Y, then tracing will always occur regardless of the presence of READY TRACE or RESET TRACE so in effect they will have no action on program execution.
COB_SCREEN_ESCIf set to any non-blank value, this variable allows a ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) to detect the Esc key.
COB_SCREEN_EXCEPTIONSSetting this variable to any non-blank value will allow the ACCEPT screen-data-item statement (see ACCEPT screen-data-item) to detect the pressing of the Esc, PgUp and PgDn keys.
COB_SORT_MEMORYThe value of this variable (an integer) will be used to define how much memory will be allocated for use in sorting. If the value is 1048576 or greater, that value will be used “as is” as the amount of memory (in bytes) to allocate. If the value is less than 1048576, the value will specify how many MB of memory will be allocated. The default sort memory amount is 128 MB.
COB_SWITCH_n(n=0 to 15); These environment variables correspond to SWITCH-0 through SWITCH-15, defined in the SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) paragraph. Setting them to ON will activate them; any other value turns them off.
COB_SYNCIf set to a value of upper- or lower-case ‘p’, this variable will force a file commit every time a file is written to (ensuring that data is immediately written to the file rather than retained in memory until a future commit occurs). This will slow-down update access to files, but will provide for better integrity in the event of a program failure.
COB_TRACE_FILEIf set to any non-null value, this environment variable specifies the file to which all -ftrace switch and -ftraceall switch output will be written. If this is NOT set to a value, all -ftrace switch and -ftraceall switch output will be written to STDERR, where it may be piped via a "2> filename" on the command that executes the program.
DB_HOMEIf your GnuCOBOL build uses the Berkeley Database (BDB) package, use this environment variable to specify the folder in which the lock management files to be associated with all non-SORT files opened by the program will be stored. ORGANIZATION INDEXED (see ORGANIZATION INDEXED) files will also have their data file allocated in the folder pointed to by this environment variable, if it exists.. Having this variable defined will activate record locking features on the READ statement (see READ), REWRITE statement (see REWRITE) and WRITE statement (see WRITE). Even with DB_HOME, locking will not work with ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL), ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL (see ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL) or ORGANIZATION RELATIVE files with GnuCOBOL builds created for Windows/MinGW. ORGANIZATION INDEXED locks will work with Windows/MinGW + BDB and all locks will work for all file organizations with UNIX GnuCOBOL builds.
PATHThe GnuCOBOL "bin" directory should be defined in the PATH.
TMPDIRTMPTEMPOne of these environment variables must be set to a directory/folder appropriate to create temporary files in. They will be checked in the order shown. This will be used by the SORT statement (see SORT) and MERGE statement (see MERGE) to create temporary work files. You may also use this folder for any temporary files your application may require.
Also used during execution of programs is runtime.cfg also found in /usr/local/share/gnucobol/config
for *nix and this file can also be changed to match your environment if needed.
When viewing, note the Default settings.
The initial runtime.cfg file is found in the $COB_CONFIG_DIR/config
( COB_CONFIG_DIR defaults to installdir/gnucobol ).
The environment variable COB_RUNTIME_CONFIG may define a different runtime
configuration file to read.
If settings are included in the runtime environment file multiple times
then the last setting value is used, no warning occurs.
Settings via environment variables always take precedence over settings
that are given in runtime configuration files. And the environment is
checked after completing processing of the runtime configuration file(s)
All values set to string variables or environment variables are checked
for ${envvar} and replacement is done at the time of the setting.
Any environment variable may be set with the directive setenv .
Example: setenv COB_LIBRARY_PATH ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
Any environment variable may be unset with the directive unsetenv
(one var per line).
Example: unsetenv COB_LIBRARY_PATH
Runtime configuration files can include other files with the directive
include.
Example: include my-runtime-configuration-file
To include another configuration file only if it is present use the directive
includeif.
You can also use ${envvar} inside this.
Example: includeif ${HOME}/mygc.cfg
If you want to reset a parameter to its default value use:
reset parametername
Most runtime variables have boolean values, some are switches, some have
string values, integer values and some are size values.
The boolean values will be evaluated as following:
to true: 1, Y, ON, YES, TRUE (no matter of case)
to false: 0, N, OFF
A 'size' value is an integer optionally followed by K, M, or G for kilo, mega
or giga.
For convenience a parameter in the runtime.cfg file may be defined by using
either the environment variable name or the parameter name.
In most cases the environment variable name is the parameter name (in upper
case) with the prefix COB_ .
Note: If you want to *slightly* speed up a program's startup time, remove all
of the comments from the actual real configuration file that is processed
Environment name: COB_DISABLE_WARNINGS
Parameter name: disable_warnings
Purpose: turn off runtime warning messages
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: DISABLE_WARNINGS TRUE
Environment name: COB_ENV_MANGLE
Parameter name: env_mangle
Purpose: names checked in the environment would get non alphanumeric
change to '_'
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: ENV_MANGLE TRUE
Environment name: COB_SET_DEBUG
Parameter name: debugging_mode
Purpose: to enable USE ON DEBUGGING procedures that were active
during compile-time because of WITH DEBUGGING MODE,
otherwise the code generated will be skipped
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: COB_SET_DEBUG 1
Environment name: COB_SET_TRACE
Parameter name: set_trace
Purpose: to enable COBOL trace feature
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: SET_TRACE TRUE
Environment name: COB_TRACE_FILE
Parameter name: trace_file
Purpose: to define where COBOL trace output should go
Type: string
Default: stderr
Example: TRACE_FILE ${HOME}/mytrace.log
Environment name: COB_TRACE_FORMAT
Parameter name: trace_format
Purpose: to define format of COBOL trace output
Type: string
Default: "%P %S Line: %L"
%P is replaced by Program-Id/Function-Id minimal length 29
with prefix
%I is replaced by Program-Id/Function-Id variable length,
without prefix
%L is replaced by Line number, right justified, length 6
%S is replaced by statement type and name
%F is replaced by source file name
Example: TRACE_FORMAT "Line: %L %S"
Note: format of GC2.2 and older:
"PROGRAM-ID: %I Line: %L %S"
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_TRACE_IO
Parameter name: trace_io
Purpose: define if I/O details should be added to trace
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: TRACE_IO true
Environment name: COB_DUMP_FILE
Parameter name: dump_file
Purpose: to define where COBOL dump output should go
Note: The -fdump=all compile option prepares for dump
Type: string : $$ is replaced by process id
Default: stderr
Example: DUMP_FILE ${HOME}/mytrace.log
Environment name: COB_DUMP_WIDTH
Parameter name: dump_width
Purpose: to define COBOL dump line length
Type: integer
Default: 100
Example: dump_width 120
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_STATS_RECORD
Parameter name: stats_record
Purpose: define if I/O statistics should be written
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: STATS_RECORD true
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_STATS_FILE
Parameter name: stats_file
Purpose: to define where COBOL I/O statistics should be written
The file is appended to
Type: string
Default: stderr
Example: STATS_FILE ${HOME}/mystats.txt
Environment name: COB_CURRENT_DATE
Parameter name: current_date
Purpose: specify an alternate Date/Time to be returned to ACCEPT
clauses this is used for testing purposes or to tweak
a missing offset partial setting is allowed
Type: numeric string in format YYYYDDMMHH24MISS or date string
Default: the operating system date is used
Example: COB_CURRENT_DATE "2016/03/16 16:40:52"
current_date YYYYMMDDHHMMSS+01:00
Environment name: COB_LIBRARY_PATH
Parameter name: library_path
Purpose: paths for dynamically-loadable modules
Type: string
Note: the default paths .:/installpath/extras are always
added to the given paths
Example: LIBRARY_PATH /opt/myapp/test:/opt/myapp/production
Environment name: COB_PRE_LOAD
Parameter name: pre_load
Purpose: modules that are loaded during startup, can be used
to CALL COBOL programs or C functions that are part
of a module library
Type: string
Note: the modules listed should NOT include extensions, the
runtime will use the right ones on the various platforms,
COB_LIBRARY_PATH is used to locate the modules
Example: PRE_LOAD COBOL_function_library:external_c_library
Environment name: COB_LOAD_CASE
Parameter name: load_case
Purpose: resolve ALL called program names to UPPER or LOWER case
Type: Only use UPPER or LOWER
Default: if not set program names in CALL are case sensitive
Example: LOAD_CASE UPPER
Environment name: COB_PHYSICAL_CANCEL
Parameter name: physical_cancel
Purpose: physically unload a dynamically-loadable module on CANCEL,
this frees some RAM and allows the change of modules during
run-time but needs more time to resolve CALLs (both to
active and not-active programs)
Alias: default_cancel_mode, LOGICAL_CANCELS (0 = yes)
Type: boolean (evaluated for true only)
Default: false
Example: PHYSICAL_CANCEL TRUE
Environment name: COB_VARSEQ_FORMAT
Parameter name: varseq_format
Purpose: declare format used for variable length sequential files
- different types and lengths precede each record
- 'length' is the data length, does not include the prefix
Type: 0 means 2 byte record length (big-endian) + 2 NULs
1 means 4 byte record length (big-endian)
2 means 4 byte record length (local machine int)
3 means 2 byte record length (big-endian)
Default: 0
Example: VARSEQ_FORMAT 1
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_VARREL_FORMAT
Parameter name: varrel_format
Purpose: declare format to be used for variable length relative files
Type: gc means 'size_t' record length (local machine) precedes
maxiumum length data record
mf means file is in Micro Focus format
b32 means Big-Endian 32-bit 'int' record length precedes data
b64 means Big-Endian 64-bit 'int' record length precedes data
l32 means Little-Endian 32-bit 'int' record length precedes data
l64 means Little-Endian 64-bit 'int' record length precedes data
Default: gc
NOTE: 'gc' results in files which cannot be used if copied between
machines of different hardware archeticture
Example: VARREL_FORMAT mf
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_FIXREL_FORMAT
Parameter name: fixrel_format
Purpose: declare format to be used for fixed length relative
files (different types and lengths preceding each record)
Type: b32 means 4 byte record length (big-endian)
l32 means 4 byte record length (little-endian)
b64 means 8 byte record length (big-endian)
l64 means 8 byte record length (little-endian)
mf means Micro Focus default
gc means GnuCOBOL default (local 'size_t')
Default: gc fixed size with no record length prefix
Example: FIXREL_FORMAT B32
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_VARFIX_FORMAT
Parameter name: varfix_format
Purpose: declare format to be used for fixed length relative files
Type: gc means 'size_t' record length (local machine) precedes
fixed length data record
mf means file is in Micro Focus format
b32 means Big-Endian 32-bit 'int' record length precedes data
b64 means Big-Endian 64-bit 'int' record length precedes data
l32 means Little-Endian 32-bit 'int' record length precedes data
l64 means Little-Endian 64-bit 'int' record length precedes data
Default: gc
NOTE: 'gc' results in files which cannot be used if copied between
machines of different hardware archeticture
Example: VARFIX_FORMAT mf
Environment name: COB_FILE_PATH
Parameter name: file_path
Purpose: define default location where data files are stored
Type: file path directory
Default: . (current directory)
Example: FILE_PATH ${HOME}/mydata
Environment name: COB_LS_FIXED
Parameter name: ls_fixed
Purpose: Defines if LINE SEQUENTIAL files should be fixed length
(or variable, by removing trailing spaces)
Alias: STRIP_TRAILING_SPACES (0 = yes)
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: LS_FIXED TRUE
Environment name: COB_LS_NULLS
Parameter name: ls_nulls
Purpose: Defines for LINE SEQUENTIAL files what to do with data
which is not DISPLAY type. This could happen if a LINE
SEQUENTIAL record has BINARY/COMP data fields in it.
For v4.0+ (may change before its release candidate)
This option is only for GnuCOBOL format files
Type: boolean
Default: false
Note: The TRUE setting will insert a null character x"00" before
those values to escape them, and redo on read-in.
Example: LS_NULL = TRUE
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_LS_SPLIT
Parameter name: ls_split
Purpose: Defines for LINE SEQUENTIAL files what to do when a record
is longer than the program handles. If 'ls_split=true' then
the data is returned as multiple records
Type: boolean
Default: false
The record is truncated and the file skips to the next LF
Example: LS_SPLIT = TRUE
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_LS_VALIDATE
Parameter name: ls_validate
Purpose: Defines for LINE SEQUENTIAL files that the data should be
validated. If any record has non-DISPLAY characters then
an error status of 34 is returned
For v4.0+ (may change before its release candidate)
This option is only for GnuCOBOL format files
Type: boolean
Default: true
Note: The TRUE setting does data validation
The FALSE setting lets non-DISPLAY characters be written
If LS_NULLS is set, then LS_VALIDATE is not checked
Example: LS_VALIDATE = FALSE
For v4.0+ (may be replaced before its release candidate)
Environment name: COB_MF_FILES
Parameter name: mf_files
Purpose: Declares that all files in the program should be in
Micro Focus compatible format.
Type: boolean (evaluated for true only)
Default: false
Example: mf_files True
For v4.0+ (may be replaced before its release candidate)
Environment name: COB_MF_LS_NULLS
Parameter name: mf_ls_nulls
Purpose: Defines for Micro Focus compatible LINE SEQUENTIAL files
what to do with data which is not DISPLAY type.
This could happen if a LINE SEQUENTIAL record has
BINARY/COMP data fields in it.
Type: boolean
Default: true
Note: The TRUE setting will handle files that contain COMP data
in a similar manner to the method used by Micro Focus COBOL
Example: MF_LS_NULLS = TRUE
For v4.0+ (may be replaced before its release candidate)
Environment name: COB_MF_LS_INSTAB
Parameter name: mf_ls_instab
Purpose: Defines for LINE SEQUENTIAL files that multiple spaces
should be replaced by a TAB character, assuming a 'tab set'
value of 8. Each TAB means to skip to the next column that
is a multiple of 8
Similar to Micro Focus INSERTTAB=ON option
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: MF_LS_INSTAB = TRUE
For v4.0+ (may be replaced before its release candidate)
Environment name: COB_MF_LS_SPLIT
Parameter name: mf_ls_split
Purpose: Defines for Micro Focus compatible LINE SEQUENTIAL files what
to do when a record is longer than the program handles.
If 'mf_ls_split=true' then
the data is returned as multiple records
Type: boolean
Default: true
Example: MF_LS_SPLIT = FALSE
For v4.0+ (may be replaced before its release candidate)
Environment name: COB_MF_LS_VALIDATE
Parameter name: mf_ls_validate
Purpose: Defines for Micro Focus compatible LINE SEQUENTIAL files
that the data should be validated.
If any record has non-DISPLAY characters then
an error status of 34 is returned
Type: boolean
Default: false
Note: The TRUE setting does data validation
The FALSE setting lets non-DISPLAY characters be written
If MF_LS_NULLS is set, then MF_LS_VALIDATE is not checked
Example: MF_LS_VALIDATE = FALSE
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_SHARE_MODE
Parameter name: share_mode
Purpose: Defines what file sharing option should be used
Type: -- choice of values ---
none - nothing overrides application code
read - files opened as SHARE READ ONLY
all - files opened as SHARE ALL OTHERS
no - files opened as SHARE NO OTHERS
Default: none
Example: share_mode = ALL
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_RETRY_MODE
Parameter name: retry_mode
Purpose: Defines what I/O retry sharing option should be used
Type: --- choice of values ---
none - nothing overrides application code
never - I/O is never retried
forever - I/O will be retried until success
Default: none
Example: retry_mode = never
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_RETRY_TIMES
Parameter name: retry_times
Purpose: Defines how many times I/O should be retried
Type: integer
Default: 0
Example: retry_times = 10
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_RETRY_SECONDS
Parameter name: retry_seconds
Purpose: Defines how many seconds I/O should be retried
Type: integer
Default: 0
Example: retry_seconds = 6
For v4.0+
Environment name: COB_KEYCHECK
Parameter name: keycheck
Purpose: Must INDEXED file keys match COBOL SELECT exactly
Type: boolean
Default: true
Example: keycheck = off
Environment name: COB_SYNC
Parameter name: sync
Purpose: Should the file be synced to disk after each write/update
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: SYNC: TRUE
Environment name: COB_SORT_MEMORY
Parameter name: sort_memory
Purpose: Defines how much RAM to assign for sorting data
if this size is exceeded the SORT will be done
on disk instead of memory
Type: size but must be more than 1M
Default: 128M
Example: SORT_MEMORY 64M
Environment name: COB_SORT_CHUNK
Parameter name: sort_chunk
Purpose: Defines how much RAM to assign for sorting data in chunks
Type: size but must be within 128K and 16M
Default: 256K
Example: SORT_CHUNK 1M
Environment name: COB_BELL
Parameter name: bell
Purpose: Defines how a request for the screen to beep is handled
Type: FLASH, SPEAKER, FALSE, BEEP
Default: BEEP
Example: BELL SPEAKER
Environment name: COB_REDIRECT_DISPLAY
Parameter name: redirect_display
Purpose: Defines if DISPLAY output should be sent to 'stderr'
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: redirect_display Yes
Environment name: COB_SCREEN_ESC
Parameter name: screen_esc
Purpose: Enable handling of ESC key during ACCEPT
Type: boolean
Default: false
Note: is only evaluated if COB_SCREEN_EXCEPTIONS is active
Example: screen_esc Yes
Environment name: COB_SCREEN_EXCEPTIONS
Parameter name: screen_exceptions
Purpose: enable exceptions for function keys during ACCEPT
Type: boolean
Default: false
Example: screen_exceptions Yes
Environment name: COB_TIMEOUT_SCALE
Parameter name: timeout_scale
Purpose: specify translation in milliseconds for ACCEPT clauses
BEFORE TIME value / AFTER TIMEOUT
Type: integer
0 means 1000 (Micro Focus COBOL compatible), 1 means 100
(ACUCOBOL compatible), 2 means 10, 3 means 1
Default: 0
Example: timeout_scale 3
Environment name: COB_INSERT_MODE
Parameter name: insert_mode
Purpose: specify default insert mode for ACCEPT; 0=off, 1=on
Type: boolean
Default: false
Note: also sets the cursor type (if available)
Example: insert_mode Y
Environment name: COB_MOUSE_FLAGS
Parameter name: mouse_flags
Purpose: specify which mouse events will be sent as function key
to the application during ACCEPT and how they will be
handled
Type: int (by bits)
Default: 1
Note: 0 disables the mouse cursor, any other value enables it,
any value containing 1 will enable internal handling (click
to position, double-click to enter).
See copy/screenio.cpy for list of events and their values.
Alias: MOUSE_FLAGS
Example: 11 (enable internal handling => 1, left press => 2,
double-click => 8; 1+2+8=11)
Environment name: COB_MOUSE_INTERVAL
Parameter name: mouse_interval
Purpose: specifies the maximum time (in thousands of a second)
that can elapse between press and release events for them
to be recognized as a click.
Type: int (0 - 166)
Default: 100
Note: 0 disables the click resolution (instead press + release
are recognized), also disables positioning by mouse click
Environment name: COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_PIPE
Parameter name: display_print_pipe
Purpose: Defines command line used for sending output of
DISPLAY UPON PRINTER to (via pipe)
This is very similar to Micro Focus COBPRINTER
Note: Each executed DISPLAY UPON PRINTER statement causes a
new invocation of command-line (= new process start).
Each invocation receives the data referenced in
the DISPLAY statement and is followed by an
end-of-file condition.
COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_FILE, if set, takes precedence
over COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_PIPE.
Alias: COBPRINTER
Type: string
Default: not set
Example: print 'cat >>/tmp/myprt.log'
Environment name: COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_FILE
Parameter name: display_print_file
Purpose: Defines file to be appended to by DISPLAY UPON PRINTER
Note: Each DISPLAY UPON PRINTER opens, appends and closes the file.
Type: string : $$ is replaced by process id
Default: not set
Example: display_printer '/tmp/myprt.log'
Environment name: COB_DISPLAY_PUNCH_FILE
Parameter name: display_punch_file
Purpose: Defines file to be created on first
DISPLAY UPON SYSPUNCH/SYSPCH
Note: The file will be only be closed on runtime exit.
Type: string : $$ is replaced by process id
Default: not set
Example: display_punch './punch_$$.out'
Environment name: COB_LEGACY
Parameter name: legacy
Purpose: keep behaviour of former runtime versions, currently only
for setting screen attributes for non input fields
Type: boolean
Default: not set
Example: legacy true
Environment name: COB_EXIT_WAIT
Parameter name: exit_wait
Purpose: to wait on main program exit if an extended screenio
DISPLAY was issued without an ACCEPT following
Type: boolean
Default: true
Example: COB_EXIT_WAIT off
Environment name: COB_EXIT_MSG
Parameter name: exit_msg
Purpose: string to display if COB_EXIT_WAIT is processed, set to '@w{}'
if no actual display but an ACCEPT should be done
Type: string
Default: 'end of program, please press a key to exit' (localized)
Example: COB_EXIT_MSG '@w{}'
Environment name: COB_COL_JUST_LRC
Parameter name: col_just_lrc
Purpose: If true, then COLUMN defined as LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER
will have the data justified within the field limits
If false, then the data is just copied into the column as is
Type: boolean
Default: TRUE
Example: col_just_lrc True
GnuCOBOL 4.+ only!
Before a file is opened a check is done for environment variables that
may define various attributes of the file
First a check is made for attributes for files of the same ORGANIZATION
IX_OPTIONS for INDEXED, SQ_OPTIONS for SEQUENTIAL, RL_OPTIONS for RELATIVE
LS_OPTIONS for LINE SEQUENTIAL, LA_OPTIONS for LINE ADVANCING SEQUENTIAL
If none of these are present, it then checks for IO_OPTIONS
Then an additional check is done for IO_asgnmame where 'asgname' was
the ASSIGN EXTERNAL name used in the program
The environment variable (or dictionary file) may contain any of the
following keywords, separated by spaces and/or commas
You can specify just the keyword and it is assumed to mean set to true,
or no-keyword (or no_keyword or nokeyword) which means set to false,
or keyword=true or keyword=false. The valid keywords are:
Keyword Meaning
========= ======================================================
type=xx Set file organization where 'xx' is one of
IX = INDEXED, SQ = SEQUENTIAL, RL = RELATIVE
LS = LINE SEQUENTIAL, LA = LINE ADVANCING
mf Set file to Micro Focus compatible format
gc Set to original GnuCOBOL default format
recsz The size for fixed size record file
maxsz Maximum record size for variable length records
minsz Minimum record size for variable length records
ls_nulls Do NUL insertion before characters less than a SPACE,
Default: false
ls_validate Validate data for LINE Sequential Files, Default: true
crlf Lines end with CR LF (Windows format for text files)
lf Lines end with LF (Unix format for text files)
sync Sync all writes to disk
B32 Use 32-bit Big-Endian format 'int' as record length
L32 Use 32-bit Little-Endian format 'int' as record length
B64 Use 64-bit Big-Endian format 'int' or 'size_t' as record length
L64 Use 64-bit Little-Endian format 'int' or 'size_t' as record length
trace Enable I/O trace when program execution tracing is enabled
stats Write I/O statistic information on file close
retry_times Default number of times to retry I/O
retry_seconds Number of seconds between I/O retry attempts
retry_forever Retry I/O forever
retry_never Never retry I/O operations
ignore_lock Ignore record locks
advancing_lock Advance to the next record if lock condition
share_all Share file with ALL others
share_read Share file for READ only
share_no Share file with NO others
---- For INDEXED files -----
format=ixhandler INDEXED file format: CISAM,DISAM,VBISAM,BDB,LMDB
format=auto INDEXED file format is determined by inspecting the file
nkeys=n number of indexes
key1=(loc:len) loc (zero relative) of key, len of key
key2=(loc:len,loc:len ...)
define composite index
dupn=Y index allows dups
---- For INDEXED BDB files -----
big_endian Set internal 'int' byte order to BIG ENDIAN
little_endian Set internal 'int' byte order to LITTLE ENDIAN
Regardless of the manner in which a main program is executed (i.e. directly or via cobcrun), any arguments specified to the program may be retrieved via any of the following:
ACCEPT FROM COMMAND-LINE (see ACCEPT FROM COMMAND-LINE)
PROCEDURE DIVISION CHAINING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION CHAINING)
By default, the GnuCOBOL compiler will truncate binary data items to the precision indicated by their PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause, if they have one. This applies to COMP, BINARY and COMP-4 items Only.
The fact is, however, that binary truncation has a significant effect on the performance of GnuCOBOL programs. When binary truncation is in effect, arithmetic operations performed against all types of numeric data items (even USAGE DISPLAY) are slowed down.
Before continuing, it’s worth making the point that we’re not talking about astronomical performance degradations here. Today’s computers are fast, and a user sitting at the keyboard, running a GnuCOBOL program is unlikely to notice. But, if you have a GnuCOBOL program that has to process large amounts of data, performing some significant “number crunching” against that data as it goes, the impact of truncation could become noticeable.
The following program compares the performance of performing arithmetic operations (in a totally non-scientific, non-rigorous way) against data items with a USAGE (see USAGE) of DISPLAY, COMP and BINARY-LONG. It was actually my intent when I first wrote the program to merely demonstrate the relative performance differences between different types of numeric data storage, and it certainly met that objective.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMOMATH.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Begin-Time.
05 BT-HH PIC 9(2).
05 BT-MM PIC 9(2).
05 BT-SS PIC 9(2).
05 BT-HU PIC 9(2).
01 Binary-Item BINARY-LONG SIGNED VALUE 0.
01 Comp-Item COMP PIC S9(9) VALUE 0.
01 Display-Item DISPLAY PIC S9(9) VALUE 0.
01 End-Time.
05 ET-HH PIC 9(2).
05 ET-MM PIC 9(2).
05 ET-SS PIC 9(2).
05 ET-HU PIC 9(2).
78 Repeat-Count VALUE 10000000.
01 Time-Diff PIC ZZ9.99.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
010-Test-Usage-DISPLAY.
ACCEPT Begin-Time FROM TIME
PERFORM Repeat-Count TIMES
ADD 7 TO Display-Item
END-PERFORM
PERFORM 100-Determine-Time-Diff
DISPLAY 'USAGE DISPLAY: ' Time-Diff ' SECONDS'
.
020-Test-Usage-COMP.
ACCEPT Begin-Time FROM TIME
PERFORM Repeat-Count TIMES
ADD 7 TO Comp-Item
END-PERFORM
PERFORM 100-Determine-Time-Diff
DISPLAY 'USAGE COMP: ' Time-Diff ' SECONDS'
.
040-Test-Usage-BINARY.
ACCEPT Begin-Time FROM TIME
PERFORM Repeat-Count TIMES
ADD 7 TO Binary-Item
END-PERFORM
PERFORM 100-Determine-Time-Diff
DISPLAY 'USAGE BINARY: ' Time-Diff ' SECONDS'
.
099-Done.
STOP RUN
.
100-Determine-Time-Diff.
ACCEPT End-Time FROM TIME
COMPUTE Time-Diff =
( (ET-HH * 360000 + ET-MM * 6000 + ET-SS * 100 + ET-HU)
- (BT-HH * 360000 + BT-MM * 6000 + BT-SS * 100 + BT-HU) )
/ 100
.
Each data item has 7 added to it ten million times.
The time (to one-one-hundredth of a second) will be retrieved before and after each test and the difference between the two is displayed. This is why the computations were done so many times — it was to make sure the timing was measurable with only a 1/100 second “stopwatch”.
I also ran the tests multiple times, just to make sure I had consistent results (I did). Like I mentioned earlier, this is not a rigorous, scientific benchmark of numeric performance; it’s just a quick-and-dirty comparison.
Here are the results:
Test 1: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.72 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.62 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS Test 2: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.69 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.61 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS Test 3: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.69 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.65 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS
The results I saw here were consistent with those that would have been obtained from most of the COBOL implementations I have ever worked with — USAGE COMP has a significant performance advantage over USAGE DISPLAY and USAGE BINARY-LONG (and presumably the other BINARY-xxx usages as well) perform identically, within the measurement tolerances of the test.
Imagine my surprise, however, when I discovered that the use of -fnotrunc switch also made a difference:
Test 4: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.72 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.07 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS Test 5: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.72 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.07 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS Test 6: USAGE DISPLAY: 1.73 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.06 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.02 SECONDS
As you can see, there was a huge drop in USAGE COMP timings by turning off truncation. As a result, I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why the -fnotrunc switch option shouldn’t be used on all GnuCOBOL compilations.
If you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your GnuCOBOL programs, don’t forget to investigate the -O switch, -O2 switch and the -Os switch, all of which influence the optimization of compiled code. Actually run programs using various optimization switches (or not) and compare execution times against those of unoptimized compiled versions of your programs. Don’t just compare the generated C code because sometimes the differences can’t be seen at the C source-code level.
Test 7: cobc -x demomath.cbl -O2;demomath USAGE DISPLAY: 1.68 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.60 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.00 SECONDS Test 8: cobc -x demomath.cbl -fnotrunc -O2;demomath USAGE DISPLAY: 1.67 SECONDS USAGE COMP: 0.01 SECONDS USAGE BINARY: 0.00 SECONDS
All tests above carried out under Linux with a AMD FX8350 under very low loading prior to the test. I would have also tried on a i7-7700 but that is under Windows 10 and I do not have a GC version on it - Vince.
Simply stated, a Subprogram is a program that is invoked by another program; the subprogram performs whatever its designed operations are and — when complete — typically returns control back to the program that invoked it. There are two different types of subprograms supported by GnuCOBOL, subroutines and user-defined functions. The distinction between these two subprogram types lies in the manner in which they are executed.
When program A invokes subprogram B as a
Subroutine, it does so using a special statement dedicated to that function (the CALL statement (see CALL), just as if B were one of the built-in system subroutines.
When program A invokes program B as a User-Defined Function, it does so in a manner identical to how B would have been invoked had it been one of the many built-in intrinsic functions.
In either instance, program A is referred to as the Calling Program while program B is known as the Called Program. GnuCOBOL programs may be a calling program, a called program or both.
A program written in the C programming language may serve as either the calling or called program too. A called program may act as a calling program to another called program. When a calling program does not serve as a called program to any program, that calling program is known as a Main Program.
Both subroutines and user-defined functions may return a value. The value they return must be an integer in the range -2147483648 to +2147483647. This value will be available in the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers) and also as the value of the data item specified on the RETURNING (see CALL) clause of a subroutine’s CALL.
Subprograms (either subroutines or user-defined functions) can be implemented in three different ways.
These are subprograms that are coded as the only COBOL program in their Compilation Unit (see Compilation Unit).
These are subprograms which occur in the same Compilation Unit as a main program and/or other subprograms. Each contained subprogram is separated from the next via an END PROGRAM marker line. As an example…
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. SUB1. … END PROGRAM SUB1. IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. SUB2. … END PROGRAM SUB2.
Program source code may be concatenated as shown here, provided an END PROGRAM marker naming the PROGRAM-ID of the just-completed program is used to separate one program from another.
There’s no reason that user-defined functions cannot be included too — they’ll just have FUNCTION-IDs and will be ended by END FUNCTION markers.
The last program in any GnuCOBOL source file need not have an END marker.
When multiple programs occur in a source file, it is assumed that the programs are related to one another in that they will be CALLed or executed as functions from the others.
It is also possible to create source files where GnuCOBOL programs are nested inside each other. Take for example these four GnuCOBOL programs:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. PROG1. … IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. PROG2. … IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. PROG3. … END PROGRAM PROG3. END PROGRAM PROG2. IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. PROG4. … END PROGRAM PROG4. END PROGRAM PROG1.
Here we see that PROG2 is nested inside of PROG1 because there is no END PROGRAM marker separating them. This means that data items or files defined within PROG1 can be used within PROG2 simply by attaching the GLOBAL (see GLOBAL) attribute to them back in PROG1 when they are defined.
Similarly, since there is no END PROGRAM marker separating PROG3 from PROG2, it is possible for PROG3 to access GLOBAL files and data items defined within PROG2. Since PROG2 is nested within PROG1, any GLOBAL resources defined within PROG1 will be available to PROG3 as well.
The two END PROGRAM markers for PROG3 and PROG2 (note their sequence) mean that PROG4 is nested within PROG1 only. It will not have access to any GLOBAL resources defined within either PROG2 or PROG3.
The END PROGRAM PROG1. marker, since it is the last line in the source file, is entirely optional.
Any subroutine may have multiple entry-points defined within it. This means the subroutine could be called either via a CALL 'program-id' or a CALL 'entry-point' statement. There may be any number of alternate entry-points defined within a subroutine.
Alternate entry-points provide multiple ways in which the same subroutine may be called; presumably, each entry-point will provide some different functionality to the calling program. For example, if you wished to write a subroutine that manipulates "student" records in a database, you might have the primary entry-point name retrieve a student record from the database, while the alternate entry points Add-Student, Update-Student and Delete-Student could provide the alternate functions implied by their entry-point names.
The alternative to using multiple entry points in your subroutine, by the way, would be to include an additional argument to the primary (and only) entry point of the subroutine; this new argument might be named STUDENT-FUNCTION and might have values of ‘FETCH’, ‘ADD’, ‘UPDATE’ or ‘DELETE’.
The primary entry-point for any subroutine is always the first executable statement following any DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) in the procedure division. The name of that entry-point (the name that will be called) is the subroutine’s PROGRAM-ID (see IDENTIFICATION DIVISION).
An alternate entry point is added to a subroutine using the ENTRY statement (see ENTRY).
When an alternate entry-point is called, execution within the subroutine will begin at the first executable statement following the ENTRY statement.
Any subprogram may be either statically or dynamically loaded into memory.
A Static Subprogram is one which was in the same Compilation Unit (see Compilation Unit) as the other program(s) which call it, therefore meaning that its executable object code is part of the same executable file as its calling program. The static subprogram was therefore loaded into memory as part of and at the same time as the calling program.
A
Dynamic Subprogram is one whose executable object code exists as an executable file separate from that containing the calling program; these two programs were therefore each compiled in their own separate Compilation Group (see Compilation Group). Dynamic subprograms are located and loaded into memory the first time they are executed. Dynamic subprograms may be unloaded from memory via the CANCEL statement (see CANCEL), if desired.
GnuCOBOL subprograms may be created as either static or dynamic subprograms, as desired by the programmer.
To demonstrate, assume that a GnuCOBOL Main Program (whose code resides in the file M.cbl) will be calling three subprograms, named A, B and C (these are the PROGRAM-IDs of the three subprograms, and their source code may be found in the files A.cbl, B.cbl and C.cbl, respectively.
Here is how these four programs would be compiled if the three subprograms are to be static:
cobc -x M.cbl A.cbl B.cbl C.cbl
This command informs the compiler (cobc) that four programs are to be compiled (the first named on the command must always be the main program), and a single executable file is to be created (due to the -x switch).
Here is how the main program and the three subprograms could be compiled if the three subprograms are to be dynamic:
cobc -x M.cbl cobc -m A.cbl B.cbl C.cbl
These commands will create an executable file for the main program (-x switch) and three separate dynamically-loadable libraries (see -m switch), one for each of the three subprograms. Had we wished, we could have created a single dynamically-loadable library containing all three subprograms by adding the -b switch to their compilation:
cobc -m -b A.cbl B.cbl C.cbl
Dynamically-loadable libraries are also known by the term dynamically-loadable modules. The two terms are synonymous.
Here are the rules about GnuCOBOL dynamically-loadable modules:
-b switch is used in addition to -m. If not, each subprogram will be compiled to a separate dynamically-loadable library.
PROGRAM-ID or FUNCTION-ID) or an alternate entry point name defined via the ENTRY statement (see ENTRY) of any one of the GnuCOBOL programs included in that module.
PATH run-time environment variable (see Run Time Environment Variables) will be searched. If it was not located in any of those directories, the library specified by the
COB_LIBRARY_PATH run-time environment variable will be searched. Finally, if it still cannot be located, execution will be terminated with an error message (libcob: Cannot find module ’xxxxxxxx’).
CANCEL statement (see CANCEL).
CANCEL statement), its list of entry-points remain available to the GnuCOBOL run-time library and subsequent re-executions of any of those entry points will be able to bypass the search (rule #4) as well as the first-execution rule (rule #3).
Consult the documentation on the
COB_PRE_LOAD run-time environment variable,
COB_PHYSICAL_CANCEL run-time environment variable and
COB_LOAD_CASE run-time environment variable run-time environment variables (see Run Time Environment Variables) for additional options when using dynamically-loadable modules.
When a subprogram is invoked, the flow of execution will differ slightly depending on whether the subprogram is a subroutine or a user-defined function.
When a subroutine is CALLed:
CALL 'entry-point' USING ... to transfer control to the subroutine.
CALL (see CALL).
PROGRAM-ID (see IDENTIFICATION DIVISION) clause of the subprogram included the
INITIAL clause, the program will be reinitialized back to its compile-time state. This will happen regardless of the INITIAL clause the first time the subprogram is executed.
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) that might be present (if the subprogram was invoked using its primary entry-point name) or the first executable statement following the ENTRY statement (see ENTRY) naming the entry-point specified on the CALL if the subprogram was invoked using an alternate entry point.
STOP statement (see STOP) with the RUN option, program execution ceases and control returns to the operating system or whatever execution shell invoked the main program.
GOBACK statement (see GOBACK) or the EXIT PROGRAM statement (see EXIT). At this time:
ENTRY statement included a
RETURNING, the value of the data item found on that clause is moved to the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers); this behaviour can be altered utilizing the
CALL-CONVENTION (see SPECIAL-NAMES) feature to leave RETURN-CODE unchanged.
RETURNING clause on the CALL statement that invoked the subprogram, the value of the RETURNING data item in the subroutine is moved to that data item. If there was no RETURNING specified in the subroutine, the value of the
RETURN-CODE special register is moved to that data item.
CALL that invoked the subprogram.
When a user-defined function is executed:
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) that might be present.
STOP statement (see STOP) with the RUN option, program execution ceases and control returns to the operating system or whatever execution shell invoked the main program.
GOBACK statement (see GOBACK) or the EXIT FUNCTION statement (see EXIT). At this time:
PROCEDURE DIVISION RETURNING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION RETURNING) clause is moved to the
RETURN-CODE special register (see Special Registers).
RETURN-CODE special register will be used for the function’s value.
Data items defined in a calling program may be passed to either type of called program (subroutine or user-defined function) as arguments.
Arguments must be described in both the calling and called programs, and while they don’t need to have the same names in both programs, they should be described in an identical manner with regard to the following characteristics:
PICTURE (see PICTURE) (including both type and length)
SIGN (see SIGN)
SYNCRONIZED (see SYNCRONIZED)
USAGE (see USAGE)
A subroutine may be passed a maximum of 251 arguments; if you build the GnuCOBOL software yourself from the distributed source, you CAN change this value by altering the defined value of COB_MAX_FIELD_PARAMS in the call.h header file but also see 7.8.5.11 for more information. There is no built-in GnuCOBOL limit to how many arguments a user-defined function may be passed.
Whether or not changes made to an argument within a subroutine will be “visible” to the calling program depends on how the argument was passed. There are three ways in which arguments may be passed from a calling program to a subroutine, as defined by the use of optional BY clauses in the CALL (see CALL) statement’s list of arguments.
As an example, the following statement passes three arguments to a subroutine — each argument is passed differently.
CALL "subroutine" USING BY REFERENCE arg-1
BY CONTENT arg-2
BY VALUE arg-3
END-CALL
The three ways arguments are passed are as follows.
BY REFERENCEWhen a subroutine argument is passed
BY REFERENCE, the subroutine is passed the address of the actual data item being passed as an argument. The item may anything defined within the data division of the program. If the subroutine modifies the contents of this argument, the calling program will “see” the results of that change when the subroutine returns control. This is the default manner in which GnuCOBOL passes arguments to a subroutine, should no BY clauses be included on the CALL.
BY CONTENTWhen a subroutine is passed an argument
BY CONTENT, the subroutine is passed the address of a copy of the actual data being passed as an argument. The item may anything defined within the data division of the program. The copy is made each time the CALL statement is executed, immediately before the CALL actually takes place. If the subroutine modifies the contents of this argument, it will be the copy that is modified, not the original data item; the calling program will therefore not “see” the results of that change when the subroutine returns control.
BY VALUEPassing a subroutine argument
BY VALUE passes the actual value of the data being passed as an argument. The item may be any elementary binary numeric item defined within the data division of the program. If the subroutine modifies the contents of this argument, the calling program will not “see” the results of that change when the subroutine returns control.
The first two ways in which arguments may be passed (BY REFERENCE and BY CONTENT) are intended for use when a GnuCOBOL program is being called, while the first and third (BY REFERENCE and BY VALUE) are intended for use when a C program is being called. You can use BY VALUE arguments when calling GnuCOBOL subroutines, but remember that those arguments are limited to being a numeric binary data item.
Arguments to user-defined functions are always passed BY REFERENCE.
When coding a GnuCOBOL subprogram (a subroutine or user-defined function), all arguments to the subprogram must be defined in the subprogram’s linkage section.
These arguments must be explicitly included on the PROCEDURE DIVISION USING (see PROCEDURE DIVISION USING) clause that lists the arguments in the sequence in which they will be passed to the subprogram.
These arguments described in the PROCEDURE DIVISION USING clause may each be defined as either BY REFERENCE, if the calling program is passing them either
BY REFERENCE or
BY CONTENT, or as
BY VALUE if they are being passed BY VALUE.
By default, all arguments are assumed to be BY REFERENCE unless explicitly stated otherwise on the procedure division header.
Arguments to a user-defined function are always to be specified as BY REFERENCE (either explicitly or by not using any BY).
If the subprogram returns a value, the data item in which the value is returned must also be defined in the subprogram’s linkage section, with a USAGE (see USAGE) of BINARY-LONG SIGNED, or its equivalent.
Another way in which a data item may be shared between a calling program (A) and a called program (B) is by defining the data item in the calling program and attaching the GLOBAL (see GLOBAL) clause to it so that it may be used within the called program. In order for this to work, program B (the one called by program A) must be a nested subprogram within program A.
Here’s a small example:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DemoGLOBAL.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Arg GLOBAL PIC X(10).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE ALL "X" TO Arg
CALL "DemoSub" END-CALL
DISPLAY "DemoGLOBAL: " Arg END-DISPLAY
GOBACK
.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DemoSub.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE ALL "*" TO Arg.
GOBACK
.
END PROGRAM DemoSub.
END PROGRAM DemoGLOBAL.
When the program runs, it produces the output:
DemoGLOBAL: **********
The final way in which a data item may be shared between a calling program (A) and a called program (B) is by defining the data item (with the same name) in both programs and attaching the EXTERNAL (see EXTERNAL) clause to it (again, in both programs). This approach works regardless of whether the called program is nested within the calling program or not. It also works even if the two programs are compiled separately.
Here’s a demonstration:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DemoEXTERNAL.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Arg EXTERNAL PIC X(10).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE ALL "X" TO Arg
CALL "DemoSub" END-CALL
DISPLAY "DemoEXTERNAL: " Arg END-DISPLAY
GOBACK
.
END PROGRAM DemoEXTERNAL.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DemoSub.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Arg EXTERNAL PIC X(10).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE ALL "*" TO Arg.
GOBACK
.
END PROGRAM DemoSub.
When the program runs, it produces the output:
DemoEXTERNAL: **********
A subroutine may CALL itself, either directly or indirectly from another subroutine or user-defined function that it CALLs. Any subroutine that indulges in this sort of behaviour (called recursion) is called a
Recursive Subprogram.
Any GnuCOBOL subroutine can be recursively invoked only if it is defined to the GnuCOBOL compiler as being a recursive subroutine. This is accomplished by adding the RECURSIVE attribute to its PROGRAM-ID (see IDENTIFICATION DIVISION).
All User-defined functions are automatically capable of being executed recursively.
Here is an example of a main program (DEMOFACT) that calls both a subprogram (SUB) and a user-defined function (FUNC) to compute the factorial value of a number.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. DEMOFACT.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
REPOSITORY.
FUNCTION RECURSIVEFUNC.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Result USAGE BINARY-LONG.
01 Arg USAGE BINARY-LONG.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main.
MOVE 6 TO Arg
CALL "RECURSIVESUB"
USING BY CONTENT Arg
RETURNING Result
DISPLAY Arg "! = "
Result
DISPLAY Arg "! = "
RECURSIVEFUNC(Arg)
GOBACK
.
END PROGRAM DEMOFACT.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. SUB RECURSIVE.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 Result USAGE BINARY-LONG.
01 Next-Arg USAGE BINARY-LONG.
01 Next-Result USAGE BINARY-LONG.
LINKAGE SECTION.
01 Arg USAGE BINARY-LONG.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING Arg
RETURNING Result.
000-Main.
DISPLAY "Entering SUB"
" Arg=" Arg
IF Arg = 1
MOVE 1 TO Result
DISPLAY "Leaving SUB"
" Returning " Result
ELSE
SUBTRACT 1 FROM Arg
GIVING Next-Arg
CALL "SUB"
USING BY CONTENT Next-Arg
RETURNING Next-Result
COMPUTE Result =
Arg * Next-Result
DISPLAY "Leaving SUB"
" Returning "
Result "=" Arg "*"
Next-Result
END-IF
GOBACK
.
END PROGRAM SUB.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
FUNCTION-ID. FUNC.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
REPOSITORY.
FUNCTION RECURSIVEFUNC.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
LINKAGE SECTION.
01 Arg USAGE BINARY-LONG.
01 Result USAGE BINARY-LONG
SIGNED.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING Arg
RETURNING Result.
000-Main.
DISPLAY "Entering FUNC"
" Arg=" Arg
IF Arg = 1
MOVE 1 TO Result
ELSE
COMPUTE Result = Arg *
FUNC(Arg - 1)
END-IF
DISPLAY "Leaving FUNC"
" Returning " Result
GOBACK
.
END FUNCTION FUNC.
When DEMOFACT is executed, the output shown below is generated.
E:\Programs\Demos>demofact Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000006 Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000005 Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000004 Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000003 Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000002 Entering RECURSIVESUB Arg=+0000000001 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000001 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000002=+0000000002*+0000000001 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000006=+0000000003*+0000000002 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000024=+0000000004*+0000000006 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000120=+0000000005*+0000000024 Leaving RECURSIVESUB Returning +0000000720=+0000000006*+0000000120 +0000000006! = +0000000720 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000006 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000005 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000004 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000003 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000002 Entering RECURSIVEFUNC Arg=+0000000001 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000001 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000002 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000006 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000024 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000120 Leaving RECURSIVEFUNC Returning +0000000720 +0000000006! = +0000000720
The upcoming sections deal the issues pertaining to calling C language programs from GnuCOBOL programs, and vice versa. Two additional sections provide samples illustrating specifics as to how those issues are overcome in actual program code.
Like most other implementations of the COBOL language, GnuCOBOL utilizes a run-time library. When the first program executed in a given execution sequence is a GnuCOBOL program, any run-time library initialization will be performed by the compiled COBOL code in a manner that is transparent to the C-language programmer. If, however, a C program is the first to execute, the burden of performing GnuCOBOL run-time library initialization falls upon the C program. See C Main Programs Calling GnuCOBOL Subprograms, for an example of how to do this.
Both languages store strings as a fixed-length continuous sequence of characters.
COBOL stores these character sequences up to a specific quantity limit imposed by the PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause of the data item. For example: 01 LastName PIC X(15)..
There is never an issue of exactly what the length of a string contained in a USAGE DISPLAY (see USAGE) data item is — there are always exactly how ever many characters as were allowed for by the PICTURE clause. In the example above, LastName will always contain exactly fifteen characters; of course, there may be anywhere from 0 to 15 trailing SPACES as part of the current LastName value.
C actually has no “string” data type; it stores strings as an array of char data type items where each element of the array is a single character. Being an array, there is an upper limit to how many characters may be stored in a given “string”. For example:
char lastName[15]; /* 15 chars: lastName[0] through lastName[14] */
C provides a robust set of string-manipulation functions to copy strings from one char array to another, search strings for certain characters, compare one char array to another, concatenate char arrays and so forth. To make these functions possible, it was necessary to be able to define the logical end of a string. C accomplishes this via the expectation that all strings (char arrays) will be terminated by a NULL character (x'00'). Of course, no one forces a programmer to do this, but if [s]he ever expects to use any of the C standard functions to manipulate that string they had better be null-terminating their strings!
So, GnuCOBOL programmers expecting to pass strings to or receive strings from C programs had best be prepared to deal with the null-termination issue, as follows:
Z'string').
PIC X) or alphabetic (PIC A) data items to C subroutines by appending an ASCII NUL character (X'00') to them. For example, to pass the 15-character LastName data item described above to a C subroutine:
01 LastName-Arg-to-C PIC X(16).
...
MOVE FUNCTION CONCATENATE(LastName,X'00') TO LastName-Arg-to-C
And then pass LastName-Arg-to-C to the C subprogram!
INSPECT statement (see INSPECT) such as the following:
INSPECT Data-From-a-C-Program
REPLACING FIRST X'00' BY SPACE
CHARACTERS BY SPACE AFTER INITIAL X'00'
Matching up GnuCOBOL numeric Usage’s with their C language data type equivalents is possible via the following chart:
| COBOL | C |
|---|---|
| BINARY-CHAR UNSIGNED | unsigned char |
| BINARY-CHAR [ SIGNED ] | signed char |
| BINARY-SHORT UNSIGNED | unsigned unsigned int unsigned short unsigned short int |
| BINARY-SHORT [ SIGNED ] | int short short int signed int signed short signed short int |
| BINARY-LONG UNSIGNED | unsigned long unsigned long int |
| BINARY-LONG [ SIGNED ] BINARY-INT | long long int signed long signed long int |
| BINARY-C-LONG [ SIGNED ] | long |
| BINARY-DOUBLE UNSIGNED | unsigned long long unsigned long long int |
| BINARY-DOUBLE [ SIGNED ] BINARY-LONG-LONG | long long int signed long long int |
| COMPUTATIONAL-1 | float |
| COMPUTATIONAL-2 | double |
| N/A (no GnuCOBOL equivalent) | long double |
These sizes conform to the COBOL standard and the minimum sizes of the COBOL types are the same as the minimum sizes of the corresponding C data types. There’s no official compatibility between them. Note that values in square braces ’[]’ are the defaults.
Here’s a sample of a GnuCOBOL program that CALLs a C subprogram.
COBOL Calling Program C Called Program
================================== ===============================
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. #include <stdio.h>
PROGRAM-ID. maincob. int subc(char *arg1,
DATA DIVISION. char *arg2,
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. unsigned long *arg3) {
01 Arg1 PIC X(7). char nu1[7]="New1";
01 Arg2 PIC X(7). char nu2[7]="New2";
01 Arg3 USAGE BINARY-LONG. printf("Starting subc\n");
PROCEDURE DIVISION. printf("Arg1=%s\n",arg1);
000-Main. printf("Arg2=%s\n",arg2);
DISPLAY 'Starting maincob' printf("Arg3=%d\n",*arg3);
MOVE Z'Arg1' TO Arg1 arg1[0]='X';
MOVE Z'Arg2' TO Arg2 arg2[0]='Y';
MOVE 123456789 TO Arg3 *arg3=987654321;
CALL 'subc' return 2;
USING BY CONTENT Arg1, }
BY REFERENCE Arg2,
BY REFERENCE Arg3
DISPLAY 'Back'
DISPLAY 'Arg1=' Arg1
DISPLAY 'Arg2=' Arg2
DISPLAY 'Arg3=' Arg3
DISPLAY 'Returned value='
RETURN-CODE
STOP RUN
.
The idea is to pass two string and one full-word unsigned arguments to the subprogram, have the subprogram print them out, change all three and pass a return code of 2 back to the caller. The caller will then re-display the three arguments (showing changes only to the two BY REFERENCE arguments), display the return code and halt.
While simple, these two programs illustrate the techniques required quite nicely.
Note how the COBOL program ensures that a null end-of-string terminator is present on both string arguments.
Since the C program is planning on making changes to all three arguments, it declares all three as pointers in the function header and references the third argument as a pointer in the function body. It actually had no choice for the two string (char array) arguments — they must be defined as pointers in the function even though the function code references them without the leading ‘*’ that normally signifies pointers.
These programs are compiled and executed as follows.
$ cobc -x maincob.cbl subc.c $ maincob Starting maincob Starting subc Arg1=Arg1 Arg2=Arg2 Arg3=123456789 Back Arg1=Arg1 Arg2=Yrg2 Arg3=+0987654321 Returned value=+000000002 $
Remember that the null characters are actually in the GnuCOBOL Arg1 and Arg2 data items. They don’t appear in the output, but they are there.
Did you notice the output showing the contents of Arg1 after the subroutine was called? Those contents were unchanged! The subroutine definitely changed that argument, but since the COBOL program passed that argument BY CONTENT, the change was made to a copy of the argument, not to the Arg1 data item itself.
Now, the roles of the two languages in the previous section will be reversed, having a C main program execute a GnuCOBOL subprogram.
C Calling Program GNU-COBOL Called Program
============================================= =================================
#include <libcob.h> /* COB RUN-TIME */ IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
#include <stdio.h> PROGRAM-ID. subcob.
int main (int argc, char **argv) { DATA DIVISION.
int returnCode; LINKAGE SECTION.
char arg1[7] = "Arg1"; 01 Arg1 PIC X(7).
char arg2[7] = "Arg2"; 01 Arg2 PIC X(7).
unsigned long arg3 = 123456789; 01 Arg3 USAGE BINARY-LONG.
printf("Starting mainc...\n"); PROCEDURE DIVISION USING
cob_init (argc, argv); /* COB RUN-TIME */ BY VALUE Arg1,
returnCode = subcob(arg1,arg2,&arg3); BY REFERENCE Arg2,
printf("Back\n"); BY REFERENCE Arg3.
printf("Arg1=%s\n",arg1); 000-Main.
printf("Arg2=%s\n",arg2); DISPLAY 'Starting cobsub.cbl'
printf("Arg3=%d\n",arg3); DISPLAY 'Arg1=' Arg1
printf("Returned value=%d\n",returnCode); DISPLAY 'Arg2=' Arg2
return returnCode; DISPLAY 'Arg3=' Arg3
} MOVE 'X' TO Arg1 (1:1)
MOVE 'Y' TO Arg2 (1:1)
MOVE 987654321 TO Arg3
MOVE 2 TO RETURN-CODE
GOBACK
.
Since the C program is the one that will execute first, before the GnuCOBOL subroutine, the burden of initializing the GnuCOBOL run-time environment lies with that C program; it will have to invoke the cob_init function, which is part of the libcob library. The two required C statements are shown highlighted.
The arguments to the cob_init routine are the argument count and value parameters passed to the main function when the program began execution. By passing them into the GnuCOBOL subprogram, it will be possible for that GnuCOBOL program to retrieve the command line or individual command-line arguments. If that won’t be necessary, cob_init(0,NULL); could be specified instead.
Since the C program wants to allow arg3 to be changed by the subprogram, it prefixes it with a ‘&’ to force a CALL BY REFERENCE for that argument. Since arg1 and arg2 are strings (char arrays), they are automatically passed by reference.
Here’s the output of the compilation process as well as the program’s execution. The example assumes a Windows system with a GnuCOBOL build that uses the GNU C compiler on that system; the technique works equally well regardless of which C compiler and which operating system you’re using.
C:\Users\Gary\Documents\Programs> cobc -S subcob.cbl C:\Users\Gary\Documents\Programs> gcc mainc.c subcob.s -o mainc.exe -llibcob C:\Users\Gary\Documents\Programs> mainc.exe Starting mainc... Starting cobsub.cbl Arg1=Arg1 Arg2=Arg2 Arg3=+0123456789 Back Arg1=Xrg1 Arg2=Yrg2 Arg3=987654321 Returned value=2 C:\Users\Gary\Documents\Programs>
Note that even though we told GnuCOBOL that the 1st argument was to be BY VALUE, it was treated as if it were BY REFERENCE anyway. String (char array) arguments passed from C callers to GnuCOBOL subprograms will be modifiable by the subprogram. It’s best to pass a copy of such data if you want to ensure that the subprogram doesn’t change it.
The third argument is different, however. Since it’s not an array you have the choice of passing it either BY REFERENCE or BY VALUE.
This chapter deals with a variety of stylistic issues that may be of interest to someone who is just starting out learning and using COBOL. Much of this chapter makes recommendations and suggestions for how to write your own programs. The sample programs in the Sample Programs document (see Top in Sample Programs) were coded using almost all of these recommendations.
There’s no particular order of importance to the topics presented here.
Historically in the early 60’s programs were first punched on to paper tape and by the mid 60’s that was replaced almost totally, by punched cards although paper tape was still used by programmers for the odd few changes to their sources held on magnetic tape or disk as a portable paper tape punch could be put in your pocket. Now the problem with punched cards were there was 2,000 cards per box and that they could and did, get dropped. So, cc (column) 1 through 6 had the card sequence number in and that way if a box was dropped they could be feed in to a card sorter to be fixed. This was after the cards was cleaned up so that they were all in the same direction which one corner cut out helped.
In the late 70’s cards was also on its way out to the point where P.C’s started being used (and no they were not made by IBM), so these columns could be used for other purposes including cc 73 - 80 instead of indicating the 8 character program name which was the maximum size allowed on a IBM system.
For quite a while now (back to the late 1970’s), the sequence number area’ of a COBOL statement (columns 1-6) has come to be used as a change indicator area. Programmers would place a code in columns 1-6 of every line they changed in a program. The author works in a COBOL shop where change indicators of the form “xxmmyy” are required on every altered line of a program — “xx” is the initials of the programmer while “mmyy” are the month and two-digit year of the date the change was made. This is frequently accompanied by a comment block at or near the top of a COBOL program providing general documentation of what changes were made and what change indicator was used to mark that change.
The GCic sample program source listing (see GCic in GnuCOBOL Sample Programs) provides an excellent example of such documentation.
This technique of using columns 1-6 as a change indicator will only work if fixed source-record format is in effect.
Some COBOL shops prefer to use the eight-character Program Name Area (columns 73-80) as a change code area.
Marking changes becomes more of a challenge when free-format source code is in effect. Creating a top-of-program comment block to generically describe changes that have been made isn’t difficult, even in free-form. What is difficult, however, is coming up with a scheme for per-statement mark up of changes that doesn’t introduce a ridiculously excessive number of source lines to the program. I’m not sure there is a good answer to this problem (if a reader has one, please let me know). Generally, I’ve noticed that shops using free-format conventions for their COBOL source tend to stick with just the top-of-program comment block combined with minimal comment blocks sprinkled throughout the program noting areas that underwent major changes.
When programs get very large, it becomes more and more challenging to keep track of the data items that will be used in the program. Here, in no particular order of importance, are a variety of conventions that can simply that problem.
Remember that the points described here are intended to make things easier for you, the programmer. No COBOL compiler cares one way or another whether any of these suggestions are followed.
A convention such as this makes it simple, when you’re reviewing code in the procedure division, to know in which section of the data division you should look in when locating the detailed description of a data item. Once you’re in the right division, coding convention #2 will assist in locating the data item definition.
-ADDRThe data item contains all or a part of an Address (City-ADDR, State-ADDR, Street-ADDR, …)
-BOOLA level-88 data item (which only has the value TRUE or FALSE)
-CDA code whose value denotes information content above and beyond that of the mere value itself. Some examples could be Error-CD, Status-CD, Billing-CD
-CHRA data item containing a single character of data.
-CONSTA constant, specified as a level-78 data item, a level-01 item with the CONST attribute
-DTThe data item contains a complete or partial date (Birth-DT, Birth-Month-DT, Birth-Year-DT, …)
-DTTMA data item containing both a date and a time
-FILEA file name. Note that these items would probably also have a “F-” prefix.
-IDXA data item used as a table index (see section 12.3)
-NMAll or a portion of a person’s name. These could be extended to include business names, product names, etc.
-PTRA data item whose USAGE is POINTER
-NUMA generic numeric data item that doesn’t fit into any of the other categories
-QTYA count of something
-RECAn 01-level item defined in the FILE SECTION (constituting the layout of a record within a file). Note that these items would probably also have a “F-” prefix.
-SCRThe data item contains a complete or partial screen description (appropriate for SCREEN SECTION 01-level data items).
-SUBA numeric item used as a table subscript (see section 12.3)
-TELAll or part of a telephone number
-TMThe data item contains a complete or partial time value
-TXTThe data item contains generic alphanumeric text that doesn’t fit into any of the other categories.
The above is by no means an exhaustive list, but good programmers will use as few of these descriptors as possible as having too many defeats any benefits of such classification/documentation efforts.
01 WS-File-Status-Message-TXT.
05 FILLER PIC X(13) VALUE 'Status Code: '.
05 WS-FSM-Status-CD PIC 9(2).
05 FILLER PIC X(11) VALUE ', Meaning: '.
05 WS-FSM-Msg-TXT PIC X(25).
The “-FSM-” acronyms make it easier to locate the description of the 01-item the status code and message text items belong to.
The elements of a table may be referenced either using a subscript or an index. Syntactically, this is coded using parenthesis, as per the following three examples, all of which store the letter ‘A’ into the 17th occurrence of a data item named WSS-Output-Image-TXT:
The 1st and 2nd examples are referred to as Subscripting while the 3rd is known as Indexing. The distinction is fairly simple.
Indexing is the process of referencing an element of a table utilizing a data item with an explicitly or implicitly defined USAGE (see USAGE) of INDEX to select the desired occurrence, while …
Subscripting is the process of referencing an element of a table utilizing either a numeric constant or an unedited numeric data item to select the desired occurrence.
Various implementations of COBOL generate object code that is quite different in each of these three situations, and GnuCOBOL is no exception.
In general, table references such as example #1 (constant subscript) generate the smallest, simplest and fastest object code while table references such as example #2 (numeric data item subscript) generate the largest, most-complicated and slowest object code.
Table references such as example #3 (table indexing) generate object code that falls in the middle of the other two but is far closer in efficiency to example #1 than #2.
Some COBOL statements (SEARCH (see SEARCH), SEARCH ALL (see SEARCH ALL) and the table-based SORT (see Table SORT)) require you to index the affected table and to utilize that index with those statements. With any other references to tables, the choice is left to the programmer as to which approach should be used. In general, follow these rules:
It’s impossible to perform any arithmetic operation against an index data item directly (other than a simple incrementation or decremental operation via the SET UP/DOWN statement (see SET UP/DOWN)). Situations where any non-trivial computations are required to calculate the effective occurrence number for a table reference will require you to use a conventional unedited numeric data item as the receiving field for the calculation. That calculated value would then need to be saved into the index data item via a SET Index statement.
If you only need to use the computed occurrence number once, you might as well just use the computed occurrence number data item as a subscript. If, however, you will need to use a computed “subscript” many more times than once, the run-time overhead of converting that occurrence value to an index (via SET Index) will be worth the coding effort.
Whew!
If references to table elements are not going to be performed many, many times it probably won’t make much difference whether you use indexing or subscripting.
If you are comfortable with the C programming language, you might find the following simple GnuCOBOL program useful in exploring the differences between subscripting and indexing:
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. SUBVSINDEX.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 WS-TABLE-SUB BINARY-LONG.
01 WS-TABLE.
05 WS-TABLE-ENTRY OCCURS 20 TIMES
INDEXED BY WS-TABLE-IDX
PIC X(1).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000-Main SECTION.
E1. MOVE 'A' TO WS-TABLE-ENTRY (17)
.
E2. MOVE 17 TO WS-TABLE-SUB
MOVE 'A' TO WS-TABLE-ENTRY (WS-TABLE-SUB)
.
E3. SET WS-TABLE-IDX TO 17
MOVE 'A' TO WS-TABLE-ENTRY (WS-TABLE-SUB)
.
Compile this program as follows (the assumption is made that you are executing the cobc command from the directory in which the above program source code (subvsindex.cbl) exists.
cobc -C -save-temps subvsindex.cbl\
After this command is executed, the file subvsindex.c will contain the procedure division C code and subvsindex.c.1.h will contain the working-storage C code. Compare the generated C code for each of the three MOVE statements.
Since the intent of a copybook is to introduce COBOL code into a particular spot in a program via the COPY statement (see COPY), it is always a good idea to prefix copybook names with a character sequence that identifies where in a program its contents are intended to be COPYed.
For example:
IDxxxxxxxxCopybooks containing code intended for the identification division. These will be rare as you almost never encounter copied code in the identification division.
EDxxxxxxxxCopybooks containing code intended for use in the environment division. These copybooks are generally used for predefined SPECIAL-NAMES (see SPECIAL-NAMES) or FILE-CONTROL (see INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION) syntax,
DDxxxxxxxxCopybooks that contain data definitions.
PDxxxxxxxxCopybooks that contain executable instructions.
The issue of whether to use section and/or paragraph names (collectively referred to as procedure names) within the procedure division is one of near religious significance with many COBOL programmers.
COBOL programming standards used by many organizations that use the language generally call for procedure names to:
2000-Update-Customer), AND…
When you are looking at or editing any large COBOL program that has been created with programming standards that include these two rules, it is always a simple thing to know whether a reference to a procedure is being made to code that exists before or after your current location in the program, simply by comparing the numeric component of the current procedure’s name with the one in question.
Technically, GnuCOBOL does not require ANY procedure names be defined unless:
ALTER statement (see ALTER) (the use of which should be avoided at all costs)
PERFORM statement (see Procedural PERFORM)
GO TO statement (see GO TO)
MERGE statement (see MERGE) with an OUTPUT PROCEDURE
SORT statement (see SORT) with either (or both) an INPUT PROCEDURE or OUTPUT PROCEDURE
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES)
Since it is difficult to write any non-trivial COBOL program that uses none of the above, lets assume you will be including at least one section or paragraph in your GnuCOBOL programs.
I like to use procedure division paragraphs and sections as follows:
DECLARATIVES (see DECLARATIVES) are defined, will be a section named 000-Main. The declaration of this procedure will immediately follow the procedure division header (or END DECLARATIVES if DECLARATIVES are used).
MERGE, PERFORM, or SORT statements will be defined as sections.
GO TO statements will be defined as paragraphs, and those paragraphs will be defined in the same section as the GO TO statements that reference them. In other words, GO TO statements may not be used to transfer control to a point in a different section. This is not a GnuCOBOL rule — this is my own personal programming practice intended to improve the readability and maintainability of my programs.
THRU on any MERGE, PERFORM or SORT statement unless the programming standards of the shop in which I am working require it. My reasoning for this is that it is too easy to accidentally introduce a new procedure into the scope of a THRU.
Over the years, there has been much debate over the efficiency and arithmetic accuracy of using the COMPUTE statement (see COMPUTE) rather than the four basic arithmetic operation statements.
Here are the facts — draw your own conclusions as to which approach is more appropriate under which circumstances.
COMPUTE statement supports exponentiation (via the ‘**’ operator) — there is no equivalent basic arithmetic statement. Although you could simulate integral exponentiation (raising a value to the third power, for example) using MULTIPLY statements, and you may use the SQRT intrinsic function (see SQRT) to find a square root, there’s just no (easy) way to find the cube-root of a value without using the COMPUTE statement.
COMPUTE statements “read” better. Take this, for example:
COMPUTE R = (A + B * C) / D
As compared to:
MULTIPLY B BY C GIVING TEMP ADD A TO TEMP DIVIDE TEMP BY D GIVING R
For non-trivial computations, COMPUTE statements may execute faster than the equivalent chain of basic arithmetic statements. For example, the COMPUTE statement shown above executes about 25% faster on my computer using GnuCOBOL than does the MULTIPLY-ADD-DIVIDE sequence.
ADD 1 TO WSS-Input-Trans-QTY
to this:
COMPUTE WS-Input-Trans-QTY = WS-Input-Trans-QTY + 1
A data item whose PICTURE clause allows it to contain only upper- and/or lower-case letters. See PICTURE.
A data item whose PICTURE clause allows it to contain absolutely any character whatsoever. See PICTURE. Group items (see Structured Data) are also implicitly considered to be alphanumeric data items.
A string of characters enclosed within a pair of quotation marks (‘"’) or apostrophes (‘'’). See Alphanumeric Literals.
Another way to refer to a subprogram. Note that a called program may also be a calling program.
A program that executes a subprogram. Note that a calling program may also be a called program.
The sequence in which the characters that are acceptable to a computer are ordered for purposes of all types of sorting, merging, comparing, and processing. GnuCOBOL programs may utilize standard character-set collating sequences (such as that defined by the ASCII or EBCDIC character sets) or programmer-defined custom sequences as specified in the OBJECT-COMPUTER paragraph (section 4.1.2) and defined in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph (section 4.1.4).
The collection of all compilation units being compiled by a single execution of the GnuCOBOL compiler.
A single source file being compiled by the GnuCOBOL compiler. A compilation unit may contain one or more programs.
An event that is triggered when a control field on an RWCS-generated report changes value. It is these events that trigger the generation of control heading and control footing groups.
A field of data being presented within a detail group; as the various detail groups that comprise the report are presented, they are presumed to appear in sorted sequence of the control fields contained within them. As an example, a department-by-department sales report for a chain of stores would probably be sorted by store number and – within like store numbers – be further sorted by department number. The store number will undoubtedly serve as a control field for the report, allowing control heading groups to be presented before each sequence of detail groups for the same store and control footing groups to be presented after each such sequence.
A report group that appears immediately after one or more detail groups of an RWCS-generated report. Such are produced automatically as a result of a control break. This type of group typically serves as a summary of the detail group(s) that precede it, as might be the case on a sales report for a chain of stores, where the detail groups documenting sales for each department (one department per detail group) from the same store might be followed by a control footing that provides a summation of the department-by-department sales for that store.
A report group that appears immediately before one or more detail groups of an RWCS-generated report. Such are produced automatically as a result of a control break. This type of group typically serves as an introduction to the detail group(s) that follow, as might be the case on a sales report for a chain of stores, where the detail groups documenting sales for each department (one department per detail group) from the same store might be preceded by a control heading that states the full name and location of the store.
The natural hierarchy of control breaks within a RWCS-controlled report based upon the manner in which the data the report is being generated from is sorted.
A segment of program code that may be utilized by multiple programs simply by having that program use the COPY statement to import that code into the program. Although similar to the “include” facility present in many other programming languages, the COBOL copybook mechanism is actually considerably more powerful. See Copybooks, for a general discussion. See COPY, for the specifics of the COPY statement.
A contiguous area of storage within the memory space of a program that may be referenced, by name, in a COBOL program. Other programming languages use the term variable, property or attribute to describe the same concept. See Structured Data.
A report group that contains the detailed data being presented for the report.
An RWCS-generated report to which at least one type of detail group is presented.
A collection of zero, one, or more sections of paragraphs, called the division body, that are formed and combined in accordance with a specific set of rules. Each division consists of the division header and the related division body. There are four divisions in a GnuCOBOL program: Identification, Environment, Data, and Procedure (coded in that sequence). See Program Structure.
A subprogram whose executable object code is contained in a different executable file as its calling program. Dynamic subprograms are therefore loaded into memory as needed.
A data item that isn’t itself comprised of other data items. See Structured Data.
A spot in the procedure division where a program may begin execution when it is executed from the operating system, invoked as a user-defined function or called by another program.
Every program has at least one entry-point — known as the primary entry-point — which corresponds to the first executable statement in the procedure division following the declaratives area, if any.
Additional entry-points may be defined via the ENTRY statement (see ENTRY).
Every entry-point has a name. That name must be unique for all programs that comprise an executable program. Entry-point names are defined using a subroutine’s PROGRAM-ID paragraph, a user-defined function’s FUNCTION-ID paragraph or via ENTRY (see ENTRY) statements coded in a subprogram’s procedure division.
The GnuCOBOL compiler can create operating-system appropriate files that may be executed directly from the operating system environment. On Windows systems, these will be .exe files whereas on UNIX systems they will have no specific extensions. The compiler’s -x switch is used to create executable files. Only main programs should be compiled in this manner.
The complete set of executable code that is run during the execution of a program. This includes the main program as well as all executed subprograms, including those that are both dynamically and statically loaded.
GnuCOBOL, like other COBOL implementations, supports a number of reserved words that may be used to represent a specific literal value. These are known as figurative constants. See Figurative Constants, for more information.
A mode of the GnuCOBOL compiler’s operation where source statements are constrained to meeting the pre-2002 standard of limiting COBOL statements to 80 columns, with various columns having limitations as to what sort of COBOL syntax could be specified in them. See Format of Program Source Lines, for more information.
A mode of the GnuCOBOL compiler’s operation where source statements are allowed to be as long as 255 characters, with no restrictions or requirements as to in which columns various syntax elements must appear. See Format of Program Source Lines, for more information.
A hierarchical data structure where the group item — itself a data item — actually consists of two or more other contiguously allocated data items. For example, Employee-Name could be a 35-character data item consisting of a 20-character Last-Name data item followed by a 14-character First-Name and a 1-character Middle-Initial. See Structured Data.
These are alphanumeric literals whose character sequence is specified by hexadecimal value. These literals are formed by a quote- or apostrophe-delimited sequence of an even number of hexadecimal digits (upper- or lower-case), prefixed with the letter ‘X’ (also upper- or lower-case). For example, the character string “Demo” could be specified as the hexadecimal alphanumeric literal X'44656D6F', assuming the ASCII character set. See Alphanumeric Literals.
A numeric literal whose value is specified by hexadecimal value. These literals are formed by a quote- or apostrophe-delimited sequence of from 1 to 16 hexadecimal digits (upper- or lower-case), prefixed with the letter ‘H’ (also upper- or lower-case). For example, the number 123456 could be specified as the hexadecimal numeric literal H'01E240'. See Numeric Literals.
These are data items a COBOL program will be working with. The vast majority of identifiers are defined by the user (programmer) while a few are pre-defined by the GnuCOBOL compiler. Identifiers pre-defined by the compiler are referred to as special registers. Other programming languages generally refer to identifiers as “variables”.
Either a statement that begins with a non decision-making verb and specifies an unconditional action to be taken or a conditional verb such as IF or EVALUATE, delimited by its explicit scope terminator (such as END-IF or END-EVALUATE). An imperative statement can consist of a sequence of imperative statements.
A built-in routine that accepts arguments and returns a value; syntactically, these may be used most places where GnuCOBOL identifiers are valid. See Intrinsic Functions, for documentation on all the GnuCOBOL intrinsic functions.
A 1- or 2-digit number that indicates the hierarchical position of a data item in a group item or the special properties of a data description entry.
Level numbers in the range 1 through 49 indicate the position of a data item in the hierarchical structure of a logical record. Level numbers in the range 1 through 9 can be written either as a single digit or as a zero followed by the significant digit.
Level numbers 66, 77, 78 and 88 identify special properties of a data description entry.
A generic term used for a constant value coded in a program that may be either a numeric literal or an alphanumeric literal.
A program that is executed directly from an operating system or shell event. Main programs are not executed from other programs (i.e. they are not called programs).
A character set that supports symbols using other than the traditional Roman alphabet symbols used by the ASCII character set. Typically, such a character set uses a UTF-16 (i.e. 16 bits-per-character) encoding of the Unicode character set.
Support for national character sets in GnuCOBOL is currently only partially implemented, and the compile- and run-time effect of using the N symbol in a PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause to define a field as containing national characters is the same as if X(2) had been coded, with the additional effect that such a field will qualify as a NATIONAL or NATIONAL-EDITED field on an INITIALIZE (see INITIALIZE) statement.
A data item whose PICTURE clause allows it to contain only the numeric digit characters 0-9 (signed or unsigned), or a data item whose PICTURE/USAGE combination allow it to contain actual binary numbers in integer, fixed-point, floating-point or packed-decimal format. Numeric data items are the only ones that may be used as table subscripts or as source arguments on arithmetic statements. PICTURE (see PICTURE), or USAGE (see USAGE).
An otherwise numeric data item whose PICTURE (see PICTURE) clause also contains any of the editing symbols ‘$’, ‘*’, ‘+’, ‘,’, ‘-’, ‘.’, ‘/’, ‘0’ (zero), ‘B’, ‘CR’, ‘DB’ or ‘Z’. Numeric edited data items are not eligible to serve as table subscripts or source arguments on arithmetic statements.
A numeric constant. See Numeric Literals.
A report group that appears at the bottom of every page of an RWCS-generated report. Information typically found within such a report group might be:
A report group that appears at the top of every page of an RWCS-generated report. Information typically found within such a report group might be:
See entry-point.
All executable code statements within a single procedure division paragraph or section.
A programmer-defined section or paragraph name in the procedure division assigned to a procedure. Procedure names serve as a means by which a statement may refer to the statements that follow the procedure name.
A GnuCOBOL main program or subprogram.
The process of establishing a unique reference to a data item whose name is duplicated in a program. This takes the form of using the duplicated data name and the name of any of its parent data items, connected by OF or IN such that the combination of those two data names is unique within the program.
A group item that is not part of a higher-level group item. See Data Definition Principles. An elementary item with a level number of 01 can also be referred to as a record if its definition occurs in the file section, provided that its definition does not include the CONSTANT attribute. See FILE-SECTION-Data-Item.
A report group that occurs only once in an RWCS-generated report — as the very last presented report group of the report. These typically serve as a visual indication that the report is finished.
One or more consecutive lines on a report that serve a common informational purpose or function. For example, lines of text that are displayed at the top or bottom of every printed page of a report.
A report group that occurs only once in an RWCS-generated report — as the very first presented report group of the report. These typically serve as an introduction to the report.
A word coded in a GnuCOBOL program without any quote or apostrophe characters around it (which would have transformed that sequence of characters into a literal string) which has a very specific meaning to the compiler. See Language Reserved Words, for a general discussion of the concept. See Appendix B - Reserved Word List, for a complete list of GnuCOBOL reserved words.
An arbitrarily long sequence of statements terminated by a period.
Special data items that are automatically defined for your use by the GnuCOBOL compiler. See Special Registers, for a complete list.
A single executable COBOL instruction. All statements start with a verb (DISPLAY, IF, MOVE, ...) which is followed by the operands and additional syntax elements that describe the actions to be performed.
A subprogram whose executable object code is part of the same executable file as its calling program. Static subprograms are therefore loaded into memory at the same time as their caller.
A program invoked directly by another program in such a manner that it may return control back to the other program, directly back to the point where the subprogram was invoked.
A subprogram executed from another via a GnuCOBOL CALL (see CALL) statement (or the equivalent in whatever programming language that other program was written in).
An RWCS-generated report to which no detail groups are presented.
A subprogram written in GnuCOBOL that is executed in a syntactically-similar manner to that by which the various built-in intrinsic functions are executed.
Either the name of an identifier or a procedure in the program. GnuCOBOL limits user-defined names to a maximum of 31 characters taken from the set of numeric digits, upper- and lower-case letters, hyphens and underscores. A user-defined name may neither begin nor end with a hyphen or underscore. User-defined names used as file names may additionally not begin with a digit although - unlike many other programming languages - user-defined names used as identifiers or procedure names may.
The first reserved word of a COBOL statement.
An alphanumeric literal prefixed with an upper- or lower-case ‘Z’ character — for example, Z'ABC'. These literals are one character longer than the value within apostrophes or quotes would make them appear. The extra character (the last character) will be a null character (comprised entirely of zero bits). These literals are ideal when defining or assigning values to alphanumeric data items that will be passed as arguments to a C subroutine. See Alphanumeric Literals.
The following is the complete list of ALL reserved words in the July2020 build of GnuCOBOL 3.1 RC-1. Even though the functionality behind some of these words may not be implemented in this version of GnuCOBOL, none may be used as any user-defined name. This list includes ALL reserved, intrinsics, mnemonics and system and shows some 1100+ words in total. In addition there are the arithmetic and relational symbols see 1.3.15 as well as extra words that can be added and existing words removed by the use of the –std file content see the specific one used for each sub-set.
3-D
ABSENT, ABS, ACCEPT, ACCESS, ACOS, ACTION, ACTIVE-CLASS, ACTIVE-X, ADDRESS, ADD, ADJUSTABLE-COLUMNS, ADVANCING, AFTER, ALIGNED, ALIGNMENT, ALLOCATE, ALL, ALPHABETIC-LOWER, ALPHABETIC-UPPER, ALPHABETIC, ALPHABET, ALPHANUMERIC-EDITED, ALPHANUMERIC, ALSO, ALTERNATE, ALTER, AND, ANNUITY, ANYCASE, ANY, AREAS, AREA, ARE, ARGUMENT-NUMBER, ARGUMENT-VALUE, ARITHMETIC, ASCENDING, ASCII, ASIN, ASSIGN, AS, ATAN, ATTRIBUTE, AT, AUTHOR, AUTO-DECIMAL, AUTOMATIC, AUTO-SKIP, AUTO-SPIN, AUTOTERMINATE, AUTO, AWAY-FROM-ZERO
BACKGROUND-COLOR, BACKGROUND-COLOUR, BACKGROUND-HIGH, BACKGROUND-LOW, BACKGROUND-STANDARD, B-AND, BAR, BASED, BEEP, BEFORE, BELL, BINARY-CHAR, BINARY-C-LONG, BINARY-DOUBLE, BINARY-INT, BINARY-LONG-LONG, BINARY-LONG, BINARY-SEQUENTIAL, BINARY-SHORT, BINARY, BITMAP-END, BITMAP-HANDLE, BITMAP-NUMBER, BITMAP-START, BITMAP-TIMER, BITMAP-TRAILING, BITMAP-TRANSPARENT-COLOR, BITMAP-WIDTH, BITMAP, BIT, BLANK, BLINK, BLOCK, B-NOT, BOOLEAN, BOOLEAN-OF-INTEGER, B-OR, BOTTOM, BOXED, BOX, BUSY, BUTTONS, B-XOR, BYTE-LENGTH, BY
C01, C02, C03, C04, C05, C06, C07, C08, C09, C10, C11, C12, CALENDAR-FONT, CALL-CONVENTION, CALL, CANCEL-BUTTON, CANCEL, CAPACITY, CARD-PUNCH, CARD-READER, CASSETTE, CBL_AND, CBL_CHANGE_DIR, CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST, CBL_CLOSE_FILE, CBL_COPY_FILE, CBL_CREATE_DIR, CBL_CREATE_FILE, CBL_DELETE_DIR, CBL_DELETE_FILE, CBL_EQ, CBL_ERROR_PROC, CBL_EXIT_PROC, CBL_FLUSH_FILE, CBL_GC_FORK, CBL_GC_GETOPT, CBL_GC_HOSTED, CBL_GC_NANOSLEEP, CBL_GC_PRINTABLE, CBL_GC_WAITPID, CBL_GET_CSR_POS, CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR, CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE, CBL_IMP, CBL_NIMP, CBL_NOR, CBL_NOT, CBL_OC_GETOPT, CBL_OC_HOSTED, CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP, CBL_OPEN_FILE, CBL_OR, CBL_READ_FILE, CBL_READ_KBD_CHAR, CBL_RENAME_FILE, CBL_SET_CSR_POS, CBL_TOLOWER, CBL_TOUPPER, CBL_WRITE_FILE, CBL_XOR, C$CALLEDBY, C$CHDIR, CCOL, C$COPY, C$DELETE, CD, CELL-COLOR, CELL-DATA, CELL-FONT, CELL-PROTECTION, CELLS, CELL, CENTERED-HEADINGS, CENTER, CENTURY-DATE, C$FILEINFO, CF, C$GETPID, CHAINING, CHAIN, CHARACTERS, CHARACTER, CHAR-NATIONAL, CHAR, CHECK-BOX, CH, C$JUSTIFY, CLASS-ID, CLASSIFICATION, CLASS, CLEAR-SELECTION, CLINES, CLINE, CLOSE, C$MAKEDIR, C$NARG, COB-CRT-STATUS, COBOL, CODE-SET, CODE, COLLATING, COLORS, COLOR, COLOURS, COLS, COLUMN-COLOR, COLUMN-DIVIDERS, COLUMN-FONT, COLUMN-HEADINGS, COLUMN-PROTECTION, COLUMNS, COLUMN, COL, COMBINED-DATETIME, COMBO-BOX, COMMAND-LINE, COMMA, COMMIT, COMMON, COMMUNICATION, COMP-1, COMP-2, COMP-3, COMP-4, COMP-5, COMP-6, COMPUTATIONAL-1, COMPUTATIONAL-2, COMPUTATIONAL-3, COMPUTATIONAL-4, COMPUTATIONAL-5, COMPUTATIONAL-6, COMPUTATIONAL-X, COMPUTATIONAL, COMPUTE, COMP-X, COMP, CONCATENATE, CONDITION, CONFIGURATION, CONSOLE, CONSTANT, CONTAINS, CONTENT, CONTINUE, CONTROLS, CONTROL, CONVERSION, CONVERTING, COPY-SELECTION, COPY, CORRESPONDING, CORR, COS, COUNT, C$PARAMSIZE, C$PRINTABLE, CRT-UNDER, CRT, CSIZE, C$SLEEP, CSP, C$TOLOWER, C$TOUPPER, CURRENCY-SYMBOL, CURRENCY, CURRENT-DATE, CURSOR-COLOR, CURSOR-COL, CURSOR-FRAME-WIDTH, CURSOR-ROW, CURSOR-X, CURSOR, CURSOR-Y, CUSTOM-PRINT-TEMPLATE, CYCLE
DASHED, DATA-COLUMNS, DATA-POINTER, DATA-TYPES, DATA, DATE-COMPILED, DATE-ENTRY, DATE-MODIFIED, DATE-OF-INTEGER, DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD, DATE-WRITTEN, DATE, DAY-OF-INTEGER, DAY-OF-WEEK, DAY-TO-YYYYDDD, DAY, DEBUGGING, DEBUG-ITEM, DECIMAL-POINT, DECLARATIVES, DEFAULT-BUTTON, DEFAULT-FONT, DEFAULT, DELETE, DELIMITED, DELIMITER, DEPENDING, DESCENDING, DESTINATION, DESTROY, DETAIL, DE, DISABLE, DISC, DISK, DISPLAY-COLUMNS, DISPLAY-FORMAT, DISPLAY-OF, DISPLAY, DIVIDER-COLOR, DIVIDERS, DIVIDE, DIVISION, DOTDASH, DOTTED, DOUBLE, DOWN, DRAG-COLOR, DROP-DOWN, DROP-LIST, DUPLICATES, DYNAMIC
E, EBCDIC, ECHO, EC, EGI, ELSE, EMI, EMPTY-CHECK, ENABLE, END-ACCEPT, END-ADD, END-CALL, END-CHAIN, END-COLOR, END-COMPUTE, END-DELETE, END-DISPLAY, END-DIVIDE, END-EVALUATE, END-IF, END-MODIFY, END-MULTIPLY, END-OF-PAGE, END-PERFORM, END-READ, END-RECEIVE, END-RETURN, END-REWRITE, END-SEARCH, END-START, END-STRING, END-SUBTRACT, END-UNSTRING, END-WRITE, END, ENGRAVED, ENSURE-VISIBLE, ENTRY-CONVENTION, ENTRY-FIELD, ENTRY-REASON, ENTRY, ENVIRONMENT-NAME, ENVIRONMENT-VALUE, ENVIRONMENT, EOL, EO, EOP, EOS, EQUALS, EQUAL, ERASE, ERROR, ESCAPE-BUTTON, ESCAPE, ESI, EVALUATE, EVENT-LIST, EVENT, EXCEPTION-FILE-N, EXCEPTION-FILE, EXCEPTION-LOCATION-N, EXCEPTION-LOCATION, EXCEPTION-OBJECT, EXCEPTION-STATEMENT, EXCEPTION-STATUS, EXCEPTION-VALUE, EXCEPTION, EXCLUSIVE, EXIT, EXP10, EXPANDS, EXPAND, EXP, EXTEND, EXTERNAL-FORM, EXTERNAL, EXTERN
F, FACTORIAL, FACTORY, FALSE, FD, FILE-CONTROL, FILE-ID, FILE-NAME, FILE-POS, FILE, FILL-COLOR2, FILL-COLOR, FILLER, FILL-PERCENT, FINAL, FINISH-REASON, FIRST, FIXED-FONT, FIXED-WIDTH, FIXED, FLAT-BUTTONS, FLAT, FLOAT-BINARY-128, FLOAT-BINARY-32, FLOAT-BINARY-64, FLOAT-DECIMAL-16, FLOAT-DECIMAL-34, FLOAT-EXTENDED, FLOAT-INFINITY, FLOATING, FLOAT-LONG, FLOAT-NOT-A-NUMBER, FLOAT-SHORT, FLOAT, FONT, FOOTING, FOREGROUND-COLOR, FOREGROUND-COLOUR, FOREVER, FORMAT, FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE, FORMATTED-DATETIME, FORMATTED-DATE, FORMATTED-TIME, FORMFEED, FOR, FRACTION-PART, FRAMED, FRAME, FREE, FROM, FULL-HEIGHT, FULL, FUNCTION-ID, FUNCTION-POINTER, FUNCTION
GENERATE, GET, GIVING, GLOBAL, GOBACK, GO-BACK, GO-FORWARD, GO-HOME, GO-SEARCH, GO, GRAPHICAL, GREATER, GRID, GROUP-USAGE, GROUP-VALUE, GROUP
HANDLE, HAS-CHILDREN, HEADING-COLOR, HEADING-DIVIDER-COLOR, HEADING-FONT, HEADING, HEAVY, HEIGHT-IN-CELLS, HIDDEN-DATA, HIGH-COLOR, HIGHEST-ALGEBRAIC, HIGHLIGHT, HIGH-VALUES, HIGH-VALUE, HOT-TRACK, HSCROLL-POS, HSCROLL
ICON, IDENTIFICATION, IDENTIFIED, ID, IF, IGNORE, IGNORING, IMPLEMENTS, INDEPENDENT, INDEXED, INDEX, INDICATE, INHERITS, INITIALISED, INITIALISE, INITIALIZED, INITIALIZE, INITIAL, INITIATE, INPUT-OUTPUT, INPUT, INQUIRE, INSERTION-INDEX, INSERT-ROWS, INSPECT, INSTALLATION, INTEGER-OF-BOOLEAN, INTEGER-OF-DATE, INTEGER-OF-DAY, INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE, INTEGER-PART, INTEGER, INTERFACE-ID, INTERFACE, INTERMEDIATE, INTO, INTRINSIC, INVALID, INVOKE, IN, I-O-CONTROL, I-O, IS, ITEM-TEXT, ITEM-TO-ADD, ITEM-TO-DELETE, ITEM-TO-EMPTY, ITEM-VALUE, ITEM
JUSTIFIED, JUST
KEPT, KEY, KEYBOARD
LABEL-OFFSET, LABEL, LARGE-FONT, LARGE-OFFSET, LAST-ROW, LAST, LAYOUT-DATA, LAYOUT-MANAGER, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, LC_MONETARY, LC_NUMERIC, LC_TIME, LEADING-SHIFT, LEADING, LEFT-JUSTIFY, LEFTLINE, LEFT-TEXT, LEFT, LENGTH-AN, LENGTH-CHECK, LENGTH, LESS, LIMITS, LIMIT, LINAGE-COUNTER, LINAGE, LINE-COUNTER, LINES-AT-ROOT, LINE-SEQUENTIAL, LINES, LINE, LINKAGE, LIST-BOX, LM-RESIZE, LOCALE-COMPARE, LOCALE-DATE, LOCALE-TIME-FROM-SECONDS, LOCALE-TIME, LOCALE, LOCAL-STORAGE, LOCK, LOG10, LOG, LONG-DATE, LOW-COLOR, LOWER-CASE, LOWERED, LOWER, LOWEST-ALGEBRAIC, LOWLIGHT, LOW-VALUES, LOW-VALUE
MAGNETIC-TAPE, MANUAL, MASS-UPDATE, MAX-LINES, MAX-PROGRESS, MAX-TEXT, MAX-VAL, MAX, MEAN, MEDIAN, MEDIUM-FONT, MEMORY, MENU, MERGE, MESSAGE, METHOD-ID, METHOD, MIDRANGE, MINUS, MIN-VAL, MIN, MODE, MODIFY, MODULE-CALLER-ID, MODULE-DATE, MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE, MODULE-ID, MODULE-PATH, MODULE-SOURCE, MODULES, MODULE-TIME, MOD, MONETARY-DECIMAL-POINT, MONETARY-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR, MOVE, MULTILINE, MULTIPLE, MULTIPLY
NAME, NATIONAL-EDITED, NATIONAL-OF, NATIONAL, NATIVE, NAVIGATE-URL, NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO, NEAREST-EVEN, NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO, NEGATIVE, NESTED, NEW, NEXT-ITEM, NEXT, NO-AUTO-DEFAULT, NO-AUTOSEL, NO-BOX, NO-DIVIDERS, NO-ECHO, NO-F4, NO-FOCUS, NO-GROUP-TAB, NO-KEY-LETTER, NONE, NORMAL, NO-SEARCH, NOTAB, NOTHING, NOTIFY-CHANGE, NOTIFY-DBLCLICK, NOTIFY-SELCHANGE, NOTIFY, NOT, NO-UPDOWN, NO, NULLS, NULL, NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERS, NUMBERS, NUMBER, NUM-COL-HEADINGS, NUMERIC-DECIMAL-POINT, NUMERIC-EDITED, NUMERIC-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR, NUMERIC, NUM-ROWS, NUMVAL-C, NUMVAL-F, NUMVAL
OBJECT-COMPUTER, OBJECT-REFERENCE, OBJECT, OCCURS, OFF, OF, OK-BUTTON, OMITTED, ONLY, ON, OPEN, OPTIONAL, OPTIONS, ORDER, ORD-MAX, ORD-MIN, ORD, ORGANISATION, ORGANIZATION, OR, OTHER, OUTPUT, OVERFLOW, OVERLAP-LEFT, OVERLAP-TOP, OVERLINE, OVERRIDE
PACKED-DECIMAL, PADDING, PAGE-COUNTER, PAGED, PAGE-SETUP, PAGE, PARAGRAPH, PARENT, PASSWORD, PERFORM, PERMANENT, PF, PH, PHYSICAL, PICTURE, PIC, PIXELS, PIXEL, PI, PLACEMENT, PLUS, POINTER, POP-UP, POSITION-SHIFT, POSITION, POSITIVE, PREFIXED, PRESENT-VALUE, PRESENT, PREVIOUS, PRINT, PRINTER-1, PRINTER, PRINTING, PRINT-NO-PROMPT, PRINT-PREVIEW, PRINT, PRIORITY, PROCEDURE-POINTER, PROCEDURES, PROCEDURE, PROCEED, PROGRAM-ID, PROGRAM-POINTER, PROGRAM, PROGRESS, PROHIBITED, PROMPT, PROPERTIES, PROPERTY, PROTECTED, PROTOTYPE, PURGE, PUSH-BUTTON
QUERY-INDEX, QUEUE, QUOTES, QUOTE
RADIO-BUTTON, RAISED, RAISE, RAISING, RANDOM, RANGE, RD, READ-ONLY, READ, RECEIVE, RECORD-DATA, RECORDING, RECORDS, RECORD-TO-ADD, RECORD-TO-DELETE, RECORD, RECURSIVE, REDEFINES, REEL, REFERENCE, REFERENCES, REFRESH, REGION-COLOR, RELATION, RELATIVE, RELEASE, REMAINDER, REMARKS, REMOVAL, REM, RENAMES, REPLACE, REPLACING, REPORTING, REPORTS, REPORT, REPOSITORY, REQUIRED, RESERVE, RESET-GRID, RESET-LIST, RESET-TABS, RESET, RESUME, RETRY, RETURN-CODE, RETURNING, RETURN, REVERSED, REVERSE-VIDEO, REVERSE, REWIND, REWRITE, RF, RH, RIGHT-ALIGN, RIGHT-JUSTIFY, RIGHT, RIMMED, ROLLBACK, ROUNDED, ROUNDING, ROW-COLOR-PATTERN, ROW-COLOR, ROW-DIVIDERS, ROW-FONT, ROW-HEADINGS, ROW-PROTECTION, RUN
S, SAME, SAVE-AS-NO-PROMPT, SAVE-AS, SCREEN, SCROLL-BAR, SCROLL, SD, SEARCH-OPTIONS, SEARCH-TEXT, SEARCH, SECONDS-FROM-FORMATTED-TIME, SECONDS-PAST-MIDNIGHT, SECONDS, SECTION, SECURE, SECURITY, SEGMENT-LIMIT, SEGMENT, SELECT-ALL, SELECTION-INDEX, SELECTION-TEXT, SELECT, SELF-ACT, SELF, SEND, SENTENCE, SEPARATE, SEPARATION, SEQUENCE, SEQUENTIAL, SET, SHADING, SHADOW, SHARING, SHORT-DATE, SHOW-LINES, SHOW-NONE, SHOW-SEL-ALWAYS, SIGNED-INT, SIGNED-LONG, SIGNED-SHORT, SIGNED, SIGN, SIN, SIZE, SMALL-FONT, SORT-MERGE, SORT-ORDER, SORT-RETURN, SORT, SOURCE-COMPUTER, SOURCES, SOURCE, SPACE-FILL, SPACES, SPACE, SPECIAL-NAMES, SPINNER, SQRT, SQUARE, STANDARD-1, STANDARD-2, STANDARD-BINARY, STANDARD-COMPARE, STANDARD-DECIMAL, STANDARD-DEVIATION, STANDARD, START-X, START, START-Y, STATEMENT, STATIC-LIST, STATIC, STATUS-BAR, STATUS-TEXT, STATUS, STDCALL, STDERR, STDIN, STDOUT, STEP, STOP, STORED-CHAR-LENGTH, STRING, STRONG, STYLE, SUB-QUEUE-1, SUB-QUEUE-2, SUB-QUEUE-3, SUBSTITUTE-CASE, SUBSTITUTE, SUBTRACT, SUBWINDOW, SUM, SUM, SUPER, SUPPRESS, SWITCH-0, SWITCH-10, SWITCH-11, SWITCH-12, SWITCH-13, SWITCH-14, SWITCH-15, SWITCH-16, SWITCH-17, SWITCH-18, SWITCH-19, SWITCH-1, SWITCH-20, SWITCH-21, SWITCH-22, SWITCH-23, SWITCH-24, SWITCH-25, SWITCH-26, SWITCH-27, SWITCH-28, SWITCH-29, SWITCH-2, SWITCH-30, SWITCH-31, SWITCH-32, SWITCH-33, SWITCH-34, SWITCH-35, SWITCH-36, SWITCH-3, SWITCH-4, SWITCH-5, SWITCH-6, SWITCH-7, SWITCH-8, SWITCH-9, SYMBOLIC, SYMBOL, SYNCHRONISED, SYNCHRONIZED, SYNC, SYSERR, SYSIN, SYSIPT, SYSLIST, SYSLST, SYSOUT, SYSTEM, SYSTEM-DEFAULT, SYSTEM-OFFSET
TABLE, TAB-TO-ADD, TAB-TO-DELETE, TAB, TALLYING, TALLY, TAN, TAPE, TEMPORARY, TERMINATE, TERMINATION-VALUE, TEST-DATE-YYYYMMDD, TEST-DAY-YYYYDDD, TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME, TEST-NUMVAL-C, TEST-NUMVAL-F, TEST-NUMVAL, TEXT, THAN, THEN, THREADS, THREAD, THROUGH, THRU, THUMB-POSITION, TILED-HEADINGS, TIMEOUT, TIME-OUT, TIMES, TIME, TITLE-POSITION, TITLE, TOP, TOWARD-GREATER, TOWARD-LESSER, TO, TRADITIONAL-FONT, TRAILING-SHIFT, TRAILING-SIGN, TRAILING, TRANSFORM, TRANSPARENT, TREE-VIEW, TRIM, TRUE, TRUNCATION, TYPEDEF, TYPE
U, UCS-4, UNBOUNDED, UNDERLINE, UNFRAMED, UNIT, UNIVERSAL, UNLOCK, UNSIGNED-INT, UNSIGNED-LONG, UNSIGNED-SHORT, UNSIGNED, UNSORTED, UNSTRING, UNTIL, UPDATE, UPON, UPPER-CASE, UPPER, UP, USAGE, USE-ALT, USER-DEFAULT, USE-RETURN, USER, USE-TAB, USE, USING, UTF-16, UTF-8
V, VALIDATE-STATUS, VALIDATE, VALID, VAL-STATUS, VALUE-FORMAT, VALUES, VALUE, VARIABLE, VARIANCE, VARIANT, VARYING, VERTICAL, VERY-HEAVY, VIRTUAL-WIDTH, VPADDING, VSCROLL-BAR, VSCROLL-POS, VSCROLL, VTOP
WAIT, WEB-BROWSER, WHEN-COMPILED, WHEN, WIDTH-IN-CELLS, WIDTH, WINDOW, WITH, WORDS, WORKING-STORAGE, WRAP, WRITE
X, X"91", X"E4", X"E5", X"F4", X"F5"
Y, YEAR-TO-YYYY, YYYYDDD, YYYYMMDD
ZEROES, ZERO-FILL, ZEROS, ZERO
The following is the complete list of ALL reserved words in the July2020 build of GnuCOBOL 3.1 RC-1. Even though the functionality behind some of these words may not be implemented in this version of GnuCOBOL, none may be used as any user-defined name. This list includes ALL reserved, intrinsics, mnemonics and system and shows some 1100+ words in total. In addition there are the arithmetic and relational symbols see 1.3.15 as well as extra words that can be added and existing words removed by the use of the –std file content see the specific one used for each sub-set.
The following list of reserved words was extracted from
cobc --list-reserved and shows the reserved words, an implementation
Please notice: This list is highly specific to the option
-std=dialect and reserved word options
(-freserved=word, -fno-reserved=word) in effect.
You can get the list for a given dialect by calling
cobc -std=dialect --list-reserved.
| Reserved word | Implemented | Aliases |
|---|---|---|
3-D | Yes (C/S) | |
ABSENT | Yes | |
ACCEPT | Yes | |
ACCESS | Yes | |
ACTION | Yes (C/S) | |
ACTIVE-CLASS | No | |
ACTIVE-X | Yes (C/S) | |
ADD | Yes | |
ADDRESS | Yes | |
ADJUSTABLE-COLUMNS | Yes (C/S) | |
ADVANCING | Yes | |
AFTER | Yes | |
ALIGNED | No | |
ALIGNMENT | Yes (C/S) | |
ALL | Yes | |
ALLOCATE | Yes | |
ALLOWING | Yes (C/S) | |
ALPHABET | Yes | |
ALPHABETIC | Yes | |
ALPHABETIC-LOWER | Yes | |
ALPHABETIC-UPPER | Yes | |
ALPHANUMERIC | Yes | |
ALPHANUMERIC-EDITED | Yes | |
ALSO | Yes | |
ALTER | Yes | |
ALTERNATE | Yes | |
AND | Yes | |
ANY | Yes | |
ANYCASE | No | |
APPLY | Yes (C/S) | |
ARE | Yes | |
AREA | Yes | AREAS |
AREAS | Yes | AREA |
ARGUMENT-NUMBER | Yes | |
ARGUMENT-VALUE | Yes | |
ARITHMETIC | Yes (C/S) | |
AS | Yes | |
ASCENDING | Yes | |
ASCII | Yes (C/S) | |
ASSIGN | Yes | |
AT | Yes | |
ATTRIBUTE | Yes (C/S) | |
ATTRIBUTES | Yes (C/S) | |
AUTO | Yes (C/S) | AUTO-SKIP, AUTOTERMINATE |
AUTO-DECIMAL | Yes (C/S) | |
AUTO-SKIP | Yes | AUTO, AUTOTERMINATE |
AUTO-SPIN | Yes (C/S) | |
AUTOMATIC | Yes | |
AUTOTERMINATE | Yes | AUTO, AUTO-SKIP |
AWAY-FROM-ZERO | Yes (C/S) | |
B-AND | No | |
B-NOT | No | |
B-OR | No | |
B-XOR | No | |
BACKGROUND-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | BACKGROUND-COLOUR |
BACKGROUND-COLOUR | Yes | BACKGROUND-COLOR |
BACKGROUND-HIGH | Yes | |
BACKGROUND-LOW | Yes | |
BACKGROUND-STANDARD | Yes | |
BAR | Yes (C/S) | |
BASED | Yes | |
BEEP | Yes | BELL |
BEFORE | Yes | |
BELL | Yes (C/S) | BEEP |
BINARY | Yes | |
BINARY-C-LONG | Yes | |
BINARY-CHAR | Yes | |
BINARY-DOUBLE | Yes | BINARY-LONG-LONG |
BINARY-INT | Yes | BINARY-LONG |
BINARY-LONG | Yes | BINARY-INT |
BINARY-LONG-LONG | Yes | BINARY-DOUBLE |
BINARY-SEQUENTIAL | Yes (C/S) | |
BINARY-SHORT | Yes | |
BIT | Yes | |
BITMAP | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-END | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-HANDLE | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-NUMBER | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-START | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-TIMER | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-TRAILING | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-TRANSPARENT-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
BITMAP-WIDTH | Yes (C/S) | |
BLANK | Yes | |
BLINK | Yes (C/S) | |
BLOCK | Yes | |
BOOLEAN | No | |
BOTTOM | Yes | |
BOX | Yes (C/S) | |
BOXED | Yes (C/S) | |
BULK-ADDITION | Yes (C/S) | |
BUSY | Yes (C/S) | |
BUTTONS | Yes (C/S) | |
BY | Yes | |
BYTE-LENGTH | Yes (C/S) | |
C | Yes (C/S) | |
CALENDAR-FONT | Yes (C/S) | |
CALL | Yes | |
CANCEL | Yes | |
CANCEL-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
CAPACITY | Yes (C/S) | |
CARD-PUNCH | Yes (C/S) | |
CARD-READER | Yes (C/S) | |
CASSETTE | Yes (C/S) | |
CCOL | Yes (C/S) | |
CD | Yes | |
CELL | Yes (C/S) | CELLS |
CELL-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
CELL-DATA | Yes (C/S) | |
CELL-FONT | Yes (C/S) | |
CELL-PROTECTION | Yes (C/S) | |
CELLS | Yes | CELL |
CENTER | Yes (C/S) | |
CENTERED | Yes (C/S) | |
CENTERED-HEADINGS | Yes (C/S) | |
CENTURY-DATE | Yes (C/S) | |
CF | Yes | |
CH | Yes | |
CHAIN | No | |
CHAINING | Yes | |
CHARACTER | Yes | |
CHARACTERS | Yes | |
CHECK-BOX | Yes (C/S) | |
CLASS | Yes | |
CLASS-ID | No | |
CLASSIFICATION | Yes (C/S) | |
CLEAR-SELECTION | Yes (C/S) | |
CLINE | Yes (C/S) | |
CLINES | Yes (C/S) | |
CLOSE | Yes | |
COBOL | Yes (C/S) | |
CODE | Yes | |
CODE-SET | Yes | |
COL | Yes | |
COLLATING | Yes | |
COLOR | Yes | |
COLORS | Yes (C/S) | COLOURS |
COLOURS | Yes | COLORS |
COLS | Yes | |
COLUMN | Yes | |
COLUMN-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
COLUMN-DIVIDERS | Yes (C/S) | |
COLUMN-FONT | Yes (C/S) | |
COLUMN-HEADINGS | Yes (C/S) | |
COLUMN-PROTECTION | Yes (C/S) | |
COLUMNS | Yes | |
COMBO-BOX | Yes (C/S) | |
COMMA | Yes | |
COMMAND-LINE | Yes | |
COMMIT | Yes | |
COMMON | Yes | |
COMMUNICATION | Yes | |
COMP | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL |
COMP-0 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-0 |
COMP-1 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-1 |
COMP-2 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-2 |
COMP-3 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-3 |
COMP-4 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-4 |
COMP-5 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-5 |
COMP-6 | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-6 |
COMP-N | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-N |
COMP-X | Yes | COMPUTATIONAL-X |
COMPUTATIONAL | Yes | COMP |
COMPUTATIONAL-0 | Yes | COMP-0 |
COMPUTATIONAL-1 | Yes | COMP-1 |
COMPUTATIONAL-2 | Yes | COMP-2 |
COMPUTATIONAL-3 | Yes | COMP-3 |
COMPUTATIONAL-4 | Yes | COMP-4 |
COMPUTATIONAL-5 | Yes | COMP-5 |
COMPUTATIONAL-6 | Yes | COMP-6 |
COMPUTATIONAL-N | Yes | COMP-N |
COMPUTATIONAL-X | Yes | COMP-X |
COMPUTE | Yes | |
CONDITION | Yes | |
CONFIGURATION | Yes | |
CONSTANT | Yes | |
CONTAINS | Yes | |
CONTENT | Yes | |
CONTINUE | Yes | |
CONTROL | Yes | |
CONTROLS | Yes | |
CONVERSION | Yes (C/S) | |
CONVERTING | Yes | |
COPY | Yes | |
COPY-SELECTION | Yes (C/S) | |
CORR | Yes | CORRESPONDING |
CORRESPONDING | Yes | CORR |
COUNT | Yes | |
CRT | Yes | |
CRT-UNDER | Yes | |
CSIZE | Yes (C/S) | |
CURRENCY | Yes | |
CURSOR | Yes | |
CURSOR-COL | Yes (C/S) | |
CURSOR-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
CURSOR-FRAME-WIDTH | Yes (C/S) | |
CURSOR-ROW | Yes (C/S) | |
CURSOR-X | Yes (C/S) | |
CURSOR-Y | Yes (C/S) | |
CUSTOM-PRINT-TEMPLATE | Yes (C/S) | |
CYCLE | Yes (C/S) | |
DASHED | Yes (C/S) | |
DATA | Yes | |
DATA-COLUMNS | Yes (C/S) | |
DATA-POINTER | No | |
DATA-TYPES | Yes (C/S) | |
DATE | Yes | |
DATE-ENTRY | Yes (C/S) | |
DAY | Yes | |
DAY-OF-WEEK | Yes | |
DE | Yes | |
DEBUGGING | Yes | |
DECIMAL-POINT | Yes | |
DECLARATIVES | Yes | |
DEFAULT | Yes | |
DEFAULT-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
DEFAULT-FONT | Yes | |
DELETE | Yes | |
DELIMITED | Yes | |
DELIMITER | Yes | |
DEPENDING | Yes | |
DESCENDING | Yes | |
DESTINATION | Yes | |
DESTROY | Yes | |
DETAIL | Yes | |
DISABLE | Yes | |
DISC | Yes (C/S) | |
DISK | Yes (C/S) | |
DISPLAY | Yes | |
DISPLAY-COLUMNS | Yes (C/S) | |
DISPLAY-FORMAT | Yes (C/S) | |
DIVIDE | Yes | |
DIVIDER-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
DIVIDERS | Yes (C/S) | |
DIVISION | Yes | |
DOTDASH | Yes (C/S) | |
DOTTED | Yes (C/S) | |
DOUBLE | Yes | FLOAT-LONG |
DOWN | Yes | |
DRAG-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
DROP-DOWN | Yes (C/S) | |
DROP-LIST | Yes (C/S) | |
DUPLICATES | Yes | |
DYNAMIC | Yes | |
EBCDIC | Yes (C/S) | |
EC | Yes | |
ECHO | Yes | |
EGI | Yes | |
ELEMENT | Yes (C/S) | |
ELSE | Yes | |
EMI | Yes | |
EMPTY-CHECK | Yes | REQUIRED |
ENABLE | Yes | |
ENCODING | Yes (C/S) | |
ENCRYPTION | Yes (C/S) | |
END | Yes | |
END-ACCEPT | Yes | |
END-ADD | Yes | |
END-CALL | Yes | |
END-CHAIN | No | |
END-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
END-COMPUTE | Yes | |
END-DELETE | Yes | |
END-DISPLAY | Yes | |
END-DIVIDE | Yes | |
END-EVALUATE | Yes | |
END-IF | Yes | |
END-JSON | Yes | |
END-MODIFY | Yes (C/S) | |
END-MULTIPLY | Yes | |
END-OF-PAGE | Yes | EOP |
END-PERFORM | Yes | |
END-READ | Yes | |
END-RECEIVE | Yes | |
END-RETURN | Yes | |
END-REWRITE | Yes | |
END-SEARCH | Yes | |
END-START | Yes | |
END-STRING | Yes | |
END-SUBTRACT | Yes | |
END-UNSTRING | Yes | |
END-WRITE | Yes | |
END-XML | Yes | |
ENGRAVED | Yes (C/S) | |
ENSURE-VISIBLE | Yes (C/S) | |
ENTRY | Yes | |
ENTRY-CONVENTION | Yes (C/S) | |
ENTRY-FIELD | Yes (C/S) | |
ENTRY-REASON | Yes (C/S) | |
ENVIRONMENT | Yes | |
ENVIRONMENT-NAME | Yes | |
ENVIRONMENT-VALUE | Yes | |
EO | No | |
EOL | Yes (C/S) | |
EOP | Yes | END-OF-PAGE |
EOS | Yes (C/S) | |
EQUAL | Yes | EQUALS |
EQUALS | Yes | EQUAL |
ERASE | Yes (C/S) | |
ERROR | Yes | |
ESCAPE | Yes | |
ESCAPE-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
ESI | Yes | |
EVALUATE | Yes | |
EVENT | Yes | |
EVENT-LIST | Yes (C/S) | |
EVERY | Yes (C/S) | |
EXCEPTION | Yes | |
EXCEPTION-OBJECT | No | |
EXCEPTION-VALUE | Yes (C/S) | |
EXCLUSIVE | Yes | |
EXIT | Yes | |
EXPAND | Yes (C/S) | |
EXPANDS | No (C/S) | |
EXTEND | Yes | |
EXTERN | Yes (C/S) | |
EXTERNAL | Yes | |
EXTERNAL-FORM | Yes | |
F | Yes (C/S) | |
FACTORY | No | |
FALSE | Yes | |
FD | Yes | |
FH--FCD | Yes (C/S) | |
FH--KEYDEF | Yes (C/S) | |
FILE | Yes | |
FILE-CONTROL | Yes | |
FILE-ID | Yes | |
FILE-NAME | Yes (C/S) | |
FILE-POS | Yes (C/S) | |
FILL-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
FILL-COLOR2 | Yes (C/S) | |
FILL-PERCENT | Yes (C/S) | |
FILLER | Yes | |
FINAL | Yes | |
FINISH-REASON | Yes (C/S) | |
FIRST | Yes | |
FIXED | Yes | |
FIXED-FONT | Yes | |
FIXED-WIDTH | Yes (C/S) | |
FLAT | Yes (C/S) | |
FLAT-BUTTONS | Yes (C/S) | |
FLOAT | Yes | FLOAT-SHORT |
FLOAT-BINARY-128 | No | |
FLOAT-BINARY-32 | No | |
FLOAT-BINARY-64 | No | |
FLOAT-DECIMAL-16 | Yes | |
FLOAT-DECIMAL-34 | Yes | |
FLOAT-EXTENDED | No | |
FLOAT-INFINITY | No | |
FLOAT-LONG | Yes | DOUBLE |
FLOAT-NOT-A-NUMBER | No (C/S) | |
FLOAT-SHORT | Yes | FLOAT |
FLOATING | Yes | |
FONT | Yes | |
FOOTING | Yes | |
FOR | Yes | |
FOREGROUND-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | FOREGROUND-COLOUR |
FOREGROUND-COLOUR | Yes | FOREGROUND-COLOR |
FOREVER | Yes (C/S) | |
FORMAT | No | |
FRAME | Yes (C/S) | |
FRAMED | Yes (C/S) | |
FREE | Yes | |
FROM | Yes | |
FULL | Yes (C/S) | LENGTH-CHECK |
FULL-HEIGHT | Yes (C/S) | |
FUNCTION | Yes | |
FUNCTION-ID | Yes | |
FUNCTION-POINTER | No | |
GENERATE | Yes | |
GET | No | |
GIVING | Yes | |
GLOBAL | Yes | |
GO | Yes | |
GO-BACK | Yes (C/S) | |
GO-FORWARD | Yes (C/S) | |
GO-HOME | Yes (C/S) | |
GO-SEARCH | Yes (C/S) | |
GOBACK | Yes | |
GRAPHICAL | Yes (C/S) | |
GREATER | Yes | |
GRID | Yes (C/S) | |
GROUP | Yes | |
GROUP-USAGE | No | |
GROUP-VALUE | Yes (C/S) | |
HANDLE | Yes | |
HAS-CHILDREN | Yes (C/S) | |
HEADING | Yes | |
HEADING-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
HEADING-DIVIDER-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
HEADING-FONT | Yes (C/S) | |
HEAVY | Yes (C/S) | |
HEIGHT-IN-CELLS | Yes (C/S) | |
HIDDEN-DATA | Yes (C/S) | |
HIGH-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
HIGH-VALUE | Yes | HIGH-VALUES |
HIGH-VALUES | Yes | HIGH-VALUE |
HIGHLIGHT | Yes (C/S) | |
HOT-TRACK | Yes (C/S) | |
HSCROLL | Yes (C/S) | |
HSCROLL-POS | Yes (C/S) | |
I-O | Yes | |
I-O-CONTROL | Yes | |
ICON | Yes (C/S) | |
ID | Yes | |
IDENTIFICATION | Yes | |
IDENTIFIED | Yes | |
IF | Yes | |
IGNORE | Yes | |
IGNORING | Yes (C/S) | |
IMPLEMENTS | No (C/S) | |
IN | Yes | |
INDEPENDENT | Yes (C/S) | |
INDEX | Yes | |
INDEXED | Yes | |
INDICATE | Yes | |
INHERITS | No | |
INITIAL | Yes | |
INITIALISE | Yes | INITIALIZE |
INITIALISED | Yes | INITIALIZED |
INITIALIZE | Yes | INITIALISE |
INITIALIZED | Yes (C/S) | INITIALISED |
INITIATE | Yes | |
INPUT | Yes | |
INPUT-OUTPUT | Yes | |
INQUIRE | Yes | |
INSERT-ROWS | Yes (C/S) | |
INSERTION-INDEX | Yes (C/S) | |
INSPECT | Yes | |
INTERFACE | No | |
INTERFACE-ID | No | |
INTERMEDIATE | Yes (C/S) | |
INTO | Yes | |
INTRINSIC | Yes (C/S) | |
INVALID | Yes | |
INVOKE | No | |
IS | Yes | |
ITEM | Yes (C/S) | |
ITEM-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
ITEM-TO-ADD | Yes (C/S) | |
ITEM-TO-DELETE | Yes (C/S) | |
ITEM-TO-EMPTY | Yes (C/S) | |
ITEM-VALUE | Yes (C/S) | |
JSON | Yes | |
JUST | Yes | JUSTIFIED |
JUSTIFIED | Yes | JUST |
KEPT | Yes | |
KEY | Yes | |
KEYBOARD | Yes (C/S) | |
LABEL | Yes | |
LABEL-OFFSET | Yes (C/S) | |
LARGE-FONT | Yes | |
LARGE-OFFSET | Yes (C/S) | |
LAST | Yes | |
LAST-ROW | Yes (C/S) | |
LAYOUT-DATA | Yes (C/S) | |
LAYOUT-MANAGER | Yes | |
LC_ALL | No (C/S) | |
LC_COLLATE | No (C/S) | |
LC_CTYPE | No (C/S) | |
LC_MESSAGES | No (C/S) | |
LC_MONETARY | No (C/S) | |
LC_NUMERIC | No (C/S) | |
LC_TIME | No (C/S) | |
LEADING | Yes | |
LEADING-SHIFT | Yes (C/S) | |
LEFT | Yes | |
LEFT-JUSTIFY | No | |
LEFT-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
LEFTLINE | Yes | |
LENGTH | Yes | |
LENGTH-CHECK | Yes | FULL |
LESS | Yes | |
LIMIT | Yes | |
LIMITS | Yes | |
LINAGE | Yes | |
LINAGE-COUNTER | Yes | |
LINE | Yes | |
LINE-COUNTER | Yes | |
LINE-SEQUENTIAL | Yes (C/S) | |
LINES | Yes | |
LINES-AT-ROOT | Yes (C/S) | |
LINKAGE | Yes | |
LIST-BOX | Yes (C/S) | |
LM-RESIZE | Yes | |
LOC | Yes (C/S) | |
LOCAL-STORAGE | Yes | |
LOCALE | Yes | |
LOCK | Yes | |
LONG-DATE | Yes (C/S) | |
LOW-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
LOW-VALUE | Yes | LOW-VALUES |
LOW-VALUES | Yes | LOW-VALUE |
LOWER | Yes (C/S) | |
LOWERED | Yes (C/S) | |
LOWLIGHT | Yes (C/S) | |
MAGNETIC-TAPE | Yes (C/S) | |
MANUAL | Yes | |
MASS-UPDATE | Yes (C/S) | |
MAX-LINES | Yes (C/S) | |
MAX-PROGRESS | Yes (C/S) | |
MAX-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
MAX-VAL | Yes (C/S) | |
MEDIUM-FONT | Yes | |
MEMORY | Yes (C/S) | |
MENU | Yes | |
MERGE | Yes | |
MESSAGE | Yes | |
METHOD | No | |
METHOD-ID | No | |
MIN-VAL | Yes (C/S) | |
MINUS | Yes | |
MODE | Yes | |
MODIFY | Yes | |
MODULES | Yes (C/S) | |
MOVE | Yes | |
MULTILINE | Yes (C/S) | |
MULTIPLE | Yes | |
MULTIPLY | Yes | |
NAME | Yes (C/S) | |
NAMESPACE | Yes (C/S) | |
NAMESPACE-PREFIX | Yes (C/S) | |
NATIONAL | Yes | |
NATIONAL-EDITED | Yes | |
NATIVE | Yes | |
NAVIGATE-URL | Yes (C/S) | |
NEAREST-AWAY-FROM-ZERO | Yes (C/S) | |
NEAREST-EVEN | Yes (C/S) | |
NEAREST-TOWARD-ZERO | Yes (C/S) | |
NEGATIVE | Yes | |
NESTED | Yes | |
NEW | Yes | |
NEXT | Yes | |
NEXT-ITEM | Yes (C/S) | |
NO | Yes | |
NO-AUTO-DEFAULT | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-AUTOSEL | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-BOX | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-DIVIDERS | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-ECHO | Yes | |
NO-F4 | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-FOCUS | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-GROUP-TAB | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-KEY-LETTER | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-SEARCH | Yes (C/S) | |
NO-UPDOWN | Yes (C/S) | |
NONE | No (C/S) | |
NONNUMERIC | Yes (C/S) | |
NORMAL | Yes (C/S) | |
NOT | Yes | |
NOTAB | Yes (C/S) | |
NOTHING | Yes | |
NOTIFY | Yes (C/S) | |
NOTIFY-CHANGE | Yes (C/S) | |
NOTIFY-DBLCLICK | Yes (C/S) | |
NOTIFY-SELCHANGE | Yes (C/S) | |
NULL | Yes | NULLS |
NULLS | Yes | NULL |
NUM-COL-HEADINGS | Yes (C/S) | |
NUM-ROWS | Yes (C/S) | |
NUMBER | Yes | |
NUMBERS | Yes | |
NUMERIC | Yes | |
NUMERIC-EDITED | Yes | |
OBJECT | Yes | |
OBJECT-COMPUTER | Yes | |
OBJECT-REFERENCE | No | |
OCCURS | Yes | |
OF | Yes | |
OFF | Yes | |
OK-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
OMITTED | Yes | |
ON | Yes | |
ONLY | Yes | |
OPEN | Yes | |
OPTIONAL | Yes | |
OPTIONS | Yes | |
OR | Yes | |
ORDER | Yes | |
ORGANISATION | Yes | ORGANIZATION |
ORGANIZATION | Yes | ORGANISATION |
OTHER | Yes | |
OTHERS | Yes (C/S) | |
OUTPUT | Yes | |
OVERFLOW | Yes | |
OVERLAP-LEFT | Yes (C/S) | OVERLAP-TOP |
OVERLAP-TOP | Yes (C/S) | OVERLAP-LEFT |
OVERLINE | Yes | |
OVERRIDE | No | |
PACKED-DECIMAL | Yes | |
PADDING | Yes | |
PAGE | Yes | |
PAGE-COUNTER | Yes | |
PAGE-SETUP | Yes (C/S) | |
PAGED | Yes (C/S) | |
PARAGRAPH | Yes (C/S) | |
PARENT | Yes (C/S) | |
PARSE | Yes (C/S) | |
PASCAL | Yes (C/S) | |
PASSWORD | Yes (C/S) | |
PERFORM | Yes | |
PERMANENT | Yes (C/S) | |
PF | Yes | |
PH | Yes | |
PHYSICAL | Yes | |
PIC | Yes | PICTURE |
PICTURE | Yes | PIC |
PIXEL | Yes (C/S) | PIXELS |
PIXELS | Yes | PIXEL |
PLACEMENT | Yes (C/S) | |
PLUS | Yes | |
POINTER | Yes | |
POP-UP | Yes (C/S) | |
POS | Yes | |
POSITION | Yes | |
POSITION-SHIFT | Yes (C/S) | |
POSITIVE | Yes | |
PREFIXED | No (C/S) | |
PRESENT | Yes | |
PREVIOUS | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINT | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINT-NO-PROMPT | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINT-PREVIEW | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINTER | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINTER-1 | Yes (C/S) | |
PRINTING | Yes | |
PRIORITY | Yes | |
PROCEDURE | Yes | |
PROCEDURE-POINTER | Yes | PROGRAM-POINTER |
PROCEDURES | Yes | |
PROCEED | Yes | |
PROCESSING | Yes (C/S) | |
PROGRAM | Yes | |
PROGRAM-ID | Yes | |
PROGRAM-POINTER | Yes | PROCEDURE-POINTER |
PROGRESS | Yes (C/S) | |
PROHIBITED | Yes (C/S) | |
PROMPT | Yes | |
PROPERTIES | Yes (C/S) | |
PROPERTY | Yes | |
PROTECTED | Yes (C/S) | |
PROTOTYPE | No | |
PURGE | Yes | |
PUSH-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
QUERY-INDEX | Yes (C/S) | |
QUEUE | Yes | |
QUOTE | Yes | QUOTES |
QUOTES | Yes | QUOTE |
RADIO-BUTTON | Yes (C/S) | |
RAISE | Yes | |
RAISED | Yes (C/S) | |
RAISING | No | |
RANDOM | Yes | |
RD | Yes | |
READ | Yes | |
READ-ONLY | Yes (C/S) | |
READERS | Yes (C/S) | |
RECEIVE | Yes | |
RECORD | Yes | |
RECORD-DATA | Yes (C/S) | |
RECORD-TO-ADD | Yes (C/S) | |
RECORD-TO-DELETE | Yes (C/S) | |
RECORDING | Yes | |
RECORDS | Yes | |
RECURSIVE | Yes (C/S) | |
REDEFINES | Yes | |
REEL | Yes | |
REFERENCE | Yes | |
REFERENCES | Yes | |
REFRESH | Yes (C/S) | |
REGION-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
RELATION | No (C/S) | |
RELATIVE | Yes | |
RELEASE | Yes | |
REMAINDER | Yes | |
REMOVAL | Yes | |
RENAMES | Yes | |
REPLACE | Yes | |
REPLACING | Yes | |
REPORT | Yes | |
REPORTING | Yes | |
REPORTS | Yes | |
REPOSITORY | Yes | |
REQUIRED | Yes (C/S) | EMPTY-CHECK |
RESERVE | Yes | |
RESET | Yes | |
RESET-GRID | Yes (C/S) | |
RESET-LIST | Yes (C/S) | |
RESET-TABS | Yes (C/S) | |
RESUME | No | |
RETRY | Yes | |
RETURN | Yes | |
RETURNING | Yes | |
REVERSE | Yes | |
REVERSE-VIDEO | Yes (C/S) | |
REVERSED | Yes | |
REWIND | Yes | |
REWRITE | Yes | |
RF | Yes | |
RH | Yes | |
RIGHT | Yes | |
RIGHT-ALIGN | Yes (C/S) | |
RIGHT-JUSTIFY | No | |
RIMMED | Yes (C/S) | |
ROLLBACK | Yes | |
ROUNDED | Yes | |
ROUNDING | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-COLOR | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-COLOR-PATTERN | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-DIVIDERS | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-FONT | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-HEADINGS | Yes (C/S) | |
ROW-PROTECTION | Yes (C/S) | |
RUN | Yes | |
S | Yes (C/S) | |
SAME | Yes | |
SAVE-AS | Yes (C/S) | |
SAVE-AS-NO-PROMPT | Yes (C/S) | |
SCREEN | Yes | |
SCROLL | Yes (C/S) | |
SCROLL-BAR | Yes (C/S) | |
SD | Yes | |
SEARCH | Yes | |
SEARCH-OPTIONS | Yes (C/S) | |
SEARCH-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
SECONDS | Yes (C/S) | |
SECTION | Yes | |
SECURE | Yes (C/S) | |
SEGMENT | Yes | |
SEGMENT-LIMIT | Yes | |
SELECT | Yes | |
SELECT-ALL | Yes (C/S) | |
SELECTION-INDEX | Yes (C/S) | |
SELECTION-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
SELF | No | |
SELF-ACT | Yes (C/S) | |
SEND | Yes | |
SENTENCE | Yes | |
SEPARATE | Yes | |
SEPARATION | Yes (C/S) | |
SEQUENCE | Yes | |
SEQUENTIAL | Yes | |
SET | Yes | |
SHADING | Yes (C/S) | |
SHADOW | Yes (C/S) | |
SHARING | Yes | |
SHORT-DATE | Yes (C/S) | |
SHOW-LINES | Yes (C/S) | |
SHOW-NONE | Yes (C/S) | |
SHOW-SEL-ALWAYS | Yes (C/S) | |
SIGN | Yes | |
SIGNED | Yes | |
SIGNED-INT | Yes | |
SIGNED-LONG | Yes | |
SIGNED-SHORT | Yes | |
SIZE | Yes | |
SMALL-FONT | Yes | |
SORT | Yes | |
SORT-MERGE | Yes | |
SORT-ORDER | Yes (C/S) | |
SOURCE | Yes | |
SOURCE-COMPUTER | Yes | |
SOURCES | No | |
SPACE | Yes | SPACES |
SPACE-FILL | No | |
SPACES | Yes | SPACE |
SPECIAL-NAMES | Yes | |
SPINNER | Yes (C/S) | |
SQUARE | Yes (C/S) | |
STANDARD | Yes | |
STANDARD-1 | Yes | |
STANDARD-2 | Yes | |
STANDARD-BINARY | Yes (C/S) | |
STANDARD-DECIMAL | Yes (C/S) | |
START | Yes | |
START-X | Yes (C/S) | |
START-Y | Yes (C/S) | |
STATEMENT | No (C/S) | |
STATIC | Yes (C/S) | |
STATIC-LIST | Yes (C/S) | |
STATUS | Yes | |
STATUS-BAR | Yes (C/S) | |
STATUS-TEXT | Yes (C/S) | |
STDCALL | Yes (C/S) | |
STEP | Yes (C/S) | |
STOP | Yes | |
STRING | Yes | |
STRONG | No (C/S) | |
STYLE | Yes (C/S) | |
SUB-QUEUE-1 | Yes | |
SUB-QUEUE-2 | Yes | |
SUB-QUEUE-3 | Yes | |
SUBTRACT | Yes | |
SUBWINDOW | Yes | |
SUM | Yes | |
SUPER | No | |
SUPPRESS | Yes | |
SYMBOL | No (C/S) | |
SYMBOLIC | Yes | |
SYNC | Yes | SYNCHRONISED, SYNCHRONIZED |
SYNCHRONISED | Yes | SYNC, SYNCHRONIZED |
SYNCHRONIZED | Yes | SYNC, SYNCHRONISED |
SYSTEM-DEFAULT | Yes | |
SYSTEM-INFO | Yes (C/S) | |
SYSTEM-OFFSET | Yes | |
TAB | Yes (C/S) | |
TAB-TO-ADD | Yes (C/S) | |
TAB-TO-DELETE | Yes (C/S) | |
TABLE | Yes | |
TALLYING | Yes | |
TAPE | Yes (C/S) | |
TEMPORARY | Yes (C/S) | |
TERMINAL-INFO | Yes (C/S) | |
TERMINATE | Yes | |
TERMINATION-VALUE | Yes (C/S) | |
TEST | Yes | |
TEXT | Yes | |
THAN | Yes | |
THEN | Yes | |
THREAD | Yes | |
THREADS | Yes | |
THROUGH | Yes | THRU |
THRU | Yes | THROUGH |
THUMB-POSITION | Yes (C/S) | |
TILED-HEADINGS | Yes (C/S) | |
TIME | Yes | |
TIME-OUT | Yes (C/S) | TIMEOUT |
TIMEOUT | Yes | TIME-OUT |
TIMES | Yes | |
TITLE | Yes (C/S) | |
TITLE-POSITION | Yes (C/S) | |
TO | Yes | |
TOP | Yes | |
TOWARD-GREATER | Yes (C/S) | |
TOWARD-LESSER | Yes (C/S) | |
TRADITIONAL-FONT | Yes | |
TRAILING | Yes | |
TRAILING-SHIFT | Yes (C/S) | |
TRAILING-SIGN | No | |
TRANSFORM | Yes | |
TRANSPARENT | Yes (C/S) | |
TREE-VIEW | Yes (C/S) | |
TRUE | Yes | |
TRUNCATION | Yes (C/S) | |
TYPE | Yes | |
TYPEDEF | No | |
U | Yes (C/S) | |
UCS-4 | Yes (C/S) | |
UNBOUNDED | Yes (C/S) | |
UNDERLINE | Yes (C/S) | |
UNFRAMED | Yes (C/S) | |
UNIT | Yes | |
UNIVERSAL | No | |
UNLOCK | Yes | |
UNSIGNED | Yes | |
UNSIGNED-INT | Yes | |
UNSIGNED-LONG | Yes | |
UNSIGNED-SHORT | Yes | |
UNSORTED | Yes (C/S) | |
UNSTRING | Yes | |
UNTIL | Yes | |
UP | Yes | |
UPDATE | Yes | |
UPDATERS | Yes (C/S) | |
UPON | Yes | |
UPPER | Yes (C/S) | |
USAGE | Yes | |
USE | Yes | |
USE-ALT | Yes (C/S) | |
USE-RETURN | Yes (C/S) | |
USE-TAB | Yes (C/S) | |
USER | Yes (C/S) | |
USER-DEFAULT | Yes | |
USING | Yes | |
UTF-16 | Yes (C/S) | |
UTF-8 | Yes (C/S) | |
V | Yes (C/S) | |
VAL-STATUS | No | |
VALID | No | |
VALIDATE | Yes | |
VALIDATE-STATUS | No | |
VALIDATING | Yes (C/S) | |
VALUE | Yes | VALUES |
VALUE-FORMAT | Yes (C/S) | |
VALUES | Yes | VALUE |
VARIABLE | Yes (C/S) | |
VARIANT | Yes | |
VARYING | Yes | |
VERTICAL | Yes (C/S) | |
VERY-HEAVY | Yes (C/S) | |
VIRTUAL-WIDTH | Yes (C/S) | |
VOLATILE | Yes | |
VPADDING | Yes (C/S) | |
VSCROLL | Yes (C/S) | |
VSCROLL-BAR | Yes (C/S) | |
VSCROLL-POS | Yes (C/S) | |
VTOP | Yes (C/S) | |
WAIT | Yes | |
WEB-BROWSER | Yes (C/S) | |
WHEN | Yes | |
WIDTH | Yes (C/S) | |
WIDTH-IN-CELLS | Yes (C/S) | |
WINDOW | Yes | |
WITH | Yes | |
WORDS | Yes | |
WORKING-STORAGE | Yes | |
WRAP | Yes (C/S) | |
WRITE | Yes | |
WRITERS | Yes (C/S) | |
X | Yes (C/S) | |
XML | Yes | |
XML-DECLARATION | Yes (C/S) | |
Y | Yes (C/S) | |
YYYYDDD | Yes (C/S) | |
YYYYMMDD | Yes (C/S) | |
ZERO | Yes | ZEROES, ZEROS |
ZERO-FILL | No (C/S) | |
ZEROES | Yes | ZERO, ZEROS |
ZEROS | Yes | ZERO, ZEROES |
AUTHOR, DATE-COMPILED, DATE-MODIFIED, DATE-WRITTEN, INSTALLATION, REMARKS, SECURITY
| Register | Implemented | Definition |
|---|---|---|
'ADDRESS OF' phrase | Yes | USAGE POINTER |
COB-CRT-STATUS | Yes | PICTURE 9(4) USAGE DISPLAY VALUE ZERO |
DEBUG-ITEM | Yes | PICTURE X(n) USAGE DISPLAY |
'LENGTH OF' phrase | Yes | CONSTANT USAGE BINARY-LONG |
NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERS | Yes | USAGE BINARY-LONG |
RETURN-CODE | Yes | GLOBAL USAGE BINARY-LONG VALUE ZERO |
SORT-RETURN | Yes | GLOBAL USAGE BINARY-LONG VALUE ZERO |
TALLY | Yes | GLOBAL PICTURE 9(5) USAGE BINARY VALUE ZERO |
WHEN-COMPILED | Yes | CONSTANT PICTURE X(16) USAGE DISPLAY |
XML-CODE | Yes | GLOBAL PICTURE S9(9) USAGE BINARY VALUE 0 |
JSON-CODE | Yes | GLOBAL PICTURE S9(9) USAGE BINARY VALUE 0 |
The following list of intrinsic functions was extracted from
cobc --list-intrinsics and shows the names of the available
functions, an implementation note and the number of parameters.
| Intrinsic Function | Implemented | Parameters |
|---|---|---|
ABS | Yes | 1 |
ACOS | Yes | 1 |
ANNUITY | Yes | 2 |
ASIN | Yes | 1 |
ATAN | Yes | 1 |
BOOLEAN-OF-INTEGER | No | 2 |
BYTE-LENGTH | Yes | 1 - 2 |
CHAR | Yes | 1 |
CHAR-NATIONAL | No | 1 |
COMBINED-DATETIME | Yes | 2 |
CONCATENATE | Yes | Unlimited |
CONTENT-LENGTH | Yes | 1 |
CONTENT-OF | Yes | 1 - 2 |
COS | Yes | 1 |
CURRENCY-SYMBOL | Yes | 0 |
CURRENT-DATE | Yes | 0 |
DATE-OF-INTEGER | Yes | 1 |
DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD | Yes | 1 - 3 |
DAY-OF-INTEGER | Yes | 1 |
DAY-TO-YYYYDDD | Yes | 1 - 3 |
DISPLAY-OF | No | 1 - 2 |
E | Yes | 0 |
EXCEPTION-FILE | Yes | 0 |
EXCEPTION-FILE-N | No | 0 |
EXCEPTION-LOCATION | Yes | 0 |
EXCEPTION-LOCATION-N | No | 0 |
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT | Yes | 0 |
EXCEPTION-STATUS | Yes | 0 |
EXP | Yes | 1 |
EXP10 | Yes | 1 |
FACTORIAL | Yes | 1 |
FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE | Yes | 1 |
FORMATTED-DATE | Yes | 2 |
FORMATTED-DATETIME | Yes | 4 - 5 |
FORMATTED-TIME | Yes | 3 - 4 |
FRACTION-PART | Yes | 1 |
HIGHEST-ALGEBRAIC | Yes | 1 |
INTEGER | Yes | 1 |
INTEGER-OF-BOOLEAN | No | 1 |
INTEGER-OF-DATE | Yes | 1 |
INTEGER-OF-DAY | Yes | 1 |
INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE | Yes | 2 |
INTEGER-PART | Yes | 1 |
LENGTH | Yes | 1 - 2 |
LENGTH-AN | Yes | 1 |
LOCALE-COMPARE Yes 2 - 3 | ||
LOCALE-DATE | Yes | 1 - 2 |
LOCALE-TIME | Yes | 1 - 2 |
LOCALE-TIME-FROM-SECONDS | Yes | 1 - 2 |
LOG | Yes | 1 |
LOG10 | Yes | 1 |
LOWER-CASE | Yes | 1 |
LOWEST-ALGEBRAIC | Yes | 1 |
MAX | Yes | Unlimited |
MEAN | Yes | Unlimited |
MEDIAN | Yes | Unlimited |
MIDRANGE | Yes | Unlimited |
MIN | Yes | Unlimited |
MOD | Yes | 2 |
MODULE-CALLER-ID | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-DATE | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-ID | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-PATH | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-SOURCE | Yes | 0 |
MODULE-TIME | Yes | 0 |
MONETARY-DECIMAL-POINT | Yes | 0 |
MONETARY-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR | Yes | 0 |
NATIONAL-OF | No | 1 - 2 |
NUMERIC-DECIMAL-POINT | Yes | 0 |
NUMERIC-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR | Yes | 0 |
NUMVAL | Yes | 1 |
NUMVAL-C | Yes | 2 |
NUMVAL-F | Yes | 1 |
ORD | Yes | 1 |
ORD-MAX | Yes | Unlimited |
ORD-MIN | Yes | Unlimited |
PI | Yes | 0 |
PRESENT-VALUE | Yes | Unlimited |
RANDOM | Yes | 0 - 1 |
RANGE | Yes | Unlimited |
REM | Yes | 2 |
REVERSE | Yes | 1 |
SECONDS-FROM-FORMATTED-TIME | Yes | 2 |
SECONDS-PAST-MIDNIGHT | Yes | 0 |
SIGN | Yes | 1 |
SIN | Yes | 1 |
SQRT | Yes | 1 |
STANDARD-COMPARE | No | 2 - 4 |
STANDARD-DEVIATION | Yes | Unlimited |
STORED-CHAR-LENGTH | Yes | 1 |
SUBSTITUTE | Yes | Unlimited |
SUBSTITUTE-CASE | Yes | Unlimited |
SUM | Yes | Unlimited |
TAN | Yes | 1 |
TEST-DATE-YYYYMMDD | Yes | 1 |
TEST-DAY-YYYYDDD | Yes | 1 |
TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME | Yes | 2 |
TEST-NUMVAL | Yes | 1 |
TEST-NUMVAL-C | Yes | 2 |
TEST-NUMVAL-F | Yes | 1 |
TRIM | Yes | 1 - 2 |
UPPER-CASE | Yes | 1 |
VARIANCE | Yes | Unlimited |
WHEN-COMPILED | Yes | 0 |
YEAR-TO-YYYY | Yes | 1 - 3 |
The following list of system routines was extracted from
cobc --list-system and shows the names of the available
system routines along with the number of parameters.
| System routine | Parameters |
|---|---|
SYSTEM | 1 |
CBL_AND | 3 |
CBL_ALARM_SOUND | 0 |
CBL_BELL_SOUND | 0 |
CBL_CHANGE_DIR | 1 |
CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST | 2 |
CBL_CLOSE_FILE | 1 |
CBL_COPY_FILE | 2 |
CBL_CREATE_DIR | 1 |
CBL_CREATE_FILE | 5 |
CBL_DELETE_DIR | 1 |
CBL_DELETE_FILE | 1 |
CBL_EQ | 3 |
CBL_ERROR_PROC | 2 |
CBL_EXIT_PROC | 2 |
CBL_FLUSH_FILE | 1 |
CBL_GET_CSR_POS | 1 |
CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR | 3 |
CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE | 2 |
CBL_IMP | 3 |
CBL_NIMP | 3 |
CBL_NOR | 3 |
CBL_NOT | 2 |
CBL_OPEN_FILE | 5 |
CBL_OR | 3 |
CBL_READ_FILE | 5 |
CBL_READ_KBD_CHAR | 1 |
CBL_RENAME_FILE | 2 |
CBL_SET_CSR_POS | 1 |
CBL_TOLOWER | 2 |
CBL_TOUPPER | 2 |
CBL_WRITE_FILE | 5 |
CBL_XOR | 3 |
CBL_GC_FORK | 0 |
CBL_GC_GETOPT | 6 |
CBL_GC_HOSTED | 2 |
CBL_GC_NANOSLEEP | 1 |
CBL_GC_PRINTABLE | 1 - 2 |
CBL_GC_WAITPID | 1 |
CBL_OC_GETOPT | 6 |
CBL_OC_HOSTED | 2 |
CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP | 1 |
C$CALLEDBY | 1 |
C$CHDIR | 2 |
C$COPY | 3 |
C$DELETE | 2 |
C$FILEINFO | 2 |
C$GETPID | 0 |
C$JUSTIFY | 1 - 2 |
C$MAKEDIR | 1 |
C$NARG | 1 |
C$PARAMSIZE | 1 |
C$PRINTABLE | 1 - 2 |
C$SLEEP | 1 |
C$TOLOWER | 2 |
C$TOUPPER | 2 |
EXTFH | 2 |
X"91" | 3 |
X"E4" | 0 |
X"E5" | 0 |
X"F4" | 2 |
X"F5" | 2 |
The following list of system names was extracted from
cobc --list-mnemonics and shows the system names categorized
by their type.
SYSIN, SYSIPT, STDIN, SYSOUT, SYSLIST, SYSLST, SYSPCH, SYSPUNCH, STDOUT, PRINT, PRINTER, PRINTER-1, SYSERR, STDERR, CONSOLE
C01, C02, C03, C04, C05, C06, C07, C08, C09, C10, C11, C12, S01, S02, S03, S04, S05, CSP, FORMFEED, TOP, CALL-CONVENTION
SWITCH-0, SWITCH-1, SWITCH-2, SWITCH-3, SWITCH-4, SWITCH-5, SWITCH-6, SWITCH-7, SWITCH-8, SWITCH-9, SWITCH-10, SWITCH-11, SWITCH-12, SWITCH-13, SWITCH-14, SWITCH-15, SWITCH-16, SWITCH-17, SWITCH-18, SWITCH-19, SWITCH-20, SWITCH-21, SWITCH-22, SWITCH-23, SWITCH-24, SWITCH-25, SWITCH-26, SWITCH-27, SWITCH-28, SWITCH-29, SWITCH-30, SWITCH-31, SWITCH-32, SWITCH-33, SWITCH-34, SWITCH-35, SWITCH-36
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GnuCOBOL is an ever-evolving tool. While all reasonable attempts will be made to maintain the currency of the information in this document, neither the author of this document nor the authors of the GnuCOBOL software extend any warranties of any kind for this document or for the information contained therein.
1st Edition - 23 JAN 2010
1st Edition (Rev 1) - 1 APR 2010
1st Edition (Rev 2) - 17 SEP 2010
2nd Edition - 17 JUL 2012.
3rd Edition - 09 APR 2014.
3rd Edition - 01 MAY 2014.
4th Edition - Late 2014, Not issued for public use.
5th Edition - Changes July 2017 through Sept 2017 for v2.2 Final.
5th Edition, Update 1 - Sept 2017.
6th Edition on release of v3.0 rc.
7th Edition on release of v3.1 rc1 with updates for 4.0+.
There may well be some changes made that are not documented here.
Taken from Grammar Changelog June 2019.
To GnuCOBOL Compiler v2.2.
Taken from Grammar Changelog Sept 2017.
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OR DOES IT? author uncertain
Using a GO TO statement to prematurely terminate a sort, or re-starting a previously-cancelled sort is not considered good programming style and should be avoided.
To prematurely terminate a sort, or re-starting a previously-cancelled sort is not considered good programming style and should be avoided.
Say what? the discussion and code seem to have diverged.