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Cobol (Common Business Oriented Language)

The document provides a history of the COBOL programming language, including its origins in 1959 and the establishment of various standards through 2002. It describes COBOL's features such as being oriented towards business applications and its support for procedural, structured, machine-independent, and object-oriented programming. It also outlines the basic structure and components of COBOL programs, including divisions, sections, paragraphs, statements, clauses, and other syntactic elements.

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Jasmin Fernando Deato

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)

756 views72 pages

Cobol (Common Business Oriented Language)

Uploaded by

Jasmin Fernando Deato

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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COBOL

(Common Business Oriented Language)

Introduction
History

 1959 – Conference on Data System

Languages (CODASYL) created
the first standardized business
computer programming language
 1960 – First proposal for COBOL –
named COBOL-60
History

 1961 – First COBOL compilers are

getting used
 1965 – The usage of COBOL starts to
increase a lot (COBOL edition
1965).
History

 1968 – The American National Standards

Institute (ANSI) sets the first
official COBOL: COBOL-68.
 1970 – The International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) makes
ANSI’s COBOL-68 an
international standard.
History

 1973 – Machine Independent COBOL

presented.
 1974 – ANSI published a revised version
of (ANSI) COBOL, COBOL-74.
 1985 – The new COBOL-85 standard is
set (ANSI X3.23-1985).
History

 1989 – Intrinsic functions are added to

the standard (ANSI X3.23a-
1989).
 1997 – Object-oriented features are
added to Structured COBOL.
History

 2002 – The long awaited object oriented

COBOL 2002 standard is set.
– Information on 2008 COBOL
standard at http://www.ansi.org
Features

 As a programming language
 Oriented towards business applications
 Supports Procedural Programming (from
COBOL-60)
 Supports Structured Programming (from
COBOL-68)
Features

 As a programming language
 Supports Machine Independent
Programming (from COBOL-73)
 Supports Object oriented programming
(from COBOL-2002)
Features

 As a high-level language
 English like
 Problem oriented
 Self-documenting
 Multi-platform support
 Easy to learn/read/write and maintain
Program Structure

PROGRAM

DIVISIONS

SECTIONS
PARAGRAPHS

ENTRY SENTENCES
CLAUSE STATEMENT
PHRASE
WORDS CHARACTERS
Character Set

 Digits (10) 0, 1-9

 Letters (26) A, B…Z
 Blank Space (01) b
 Symbols (12) +-*/,.()=$;“
 Conditional (02) <>

Total: 51 Characters in COBOL-74

Character Set

 Reference Modifier (01) :

Total: 52 Characters in COBOL-85
 Apostrophe (01) ‘
Total: 53 Characters in Mainframe
COBOL

Note: Mainframe COBOL also includes

small letters (a to z), for nonnumeric
literals.
Reserved Words

 Keywords
 The spelling of words are American
English and not British
 COBOL supports abbreviations in many
cases
User Defined Words

 Should not be a Reserved Word

 1 - 30 characters
 Letters, digits, hyphens (-) only
 At least one Letter or Hyphen
(Recommended to use the first
character as an alphabet)
User Defined Words

 Hyphen/s should be embedded.

 Spaces are not allowed.
 Must be unique within a set
Literals

 User defined constants

 Can be Numeric literal, Floating point
literal and Non-numeric literal

Note : A non-numeric literal can hold a

character which is not
available in COBOL character
set.
Literals

 Numeric Literals
 May consist of
numerals
decimal point (.)
 1 decimal character is allowed
 Should not be the rightmost character
plus or minus sign
 1 sign character (+ or -) is allowed
 Leftmost character
 Not enclosed in quotes
Literals

 Numeric Literals
Examples

123
123.45
-256
+2987
Literals

 Floating Point Literals

 Support a much wider range of values
than numeric literal
Example

In Mathematics In COBOL
12345000 1.2345*107 1.2345E07 or
+12.345E+06
Literals

 Non-Numeric Literals
 Enclosed in quotes (“)
 May consists of alphanumeric characters
 1 – 160 characters
 An embedded quotation mark must be
represented by a pair of quotation marks (“
“)
Literals

 Non-Numeric Literals
 The opening delimiter (“) cannot split
across lines.

Note: COBOL-74 compilers accept only

120 characters.
Figurative Constants

 Predefined constants, but reserved

words
 Except ZERO/ZEROES, others are
treated as Non-Numeric Literals
Figurative Constants

Examples

ZERO, ZEROS, ZEROES (0)

QUOTE, QUOTES (“)
SPACE, SPACES
ALL Represents 1 or more occurrences
of the string
*Not used in Mainframe
Figurative Constants

Examples

NULL, NULLS To indicate an invalid

address for a POINTER variable;
Has the value Zero in Mainframe
COBOL
Figurative Constants

Examples

HIGH-VALUE, HIGH-VALUES Highest

value in the collating sequence
Figurative Constants

Examples

LOW-VALUE, LOW-VALUES Lowest

ordinal position in the collating
sequence
Figurative Constants

NOTES:
The singular and plural forms of a figurative
constant can be used interchangeably.
Do not use QUOTE/QUOTES to enclose a
Non-numeric literal.
ZERO, ZEROS, ZEROES are considered as
Numeric Literals.
Special Registers

 Reserved words that name storage

areas generated by the compiler
Special Registers

Examples

RETURN-CODE Used to pass a return

code to the calling
program or to the JCL
when the current
COBOL program ends
Special Registers

Examples

WHEN-COMPILED Contains the date at the

start of the program
compilation
Operators

 Arithmetic Operators
 Relational Operators
 Logical Operators

Note: All COBOL operators must be preceded

and followed by a space.
Operators

 Arithmetic Operators
 Binary Operators
 Addition +
 Subtraction -
 Multiplication *
 Division /
 Exponentiation **
Operators

 Arithmetic Operators
 Unary Operators
 Positive + (Equals to Multiplication by +1)
 Negative - (Equals to Multiplication by +1)
Operators

 Relational Operators
 Less Than <
 Greater Than >
 Equal To =
 Less Than or Equal To <=
 Greater Than or Equal To >=

Note: Each relational operators can be combined with the

NOT logical operator
Operators

 Logical Operators
 Conjunction AND
 Inclusive OR
 Negation NOT
Separator String

 A word formed by 2 or more contiguous

characters
 1st character is a special character and the 2nd
character is a space.
Separator String

Examples
Separator comma ,b
Separator period .b
Separator Semicolon ;b

Note: b indicates a blank space.

Separator String Rules

 A COBOL statement may use Separator Period

or
Separator Comma or
Separator Semicolon.
Separator String Rules

 The following must end with a separator period:

 Sentence
 File (FD), sort/merge file (SD) and data description
entries in the data division
 Each paragraph in the Identification division
Separator String Rules

 The following must end with a separator period:

 SOURCE-COMPUTER, OBJECT-COMPUTER,
SPECIAL-NAMES and I-O-CONTROL paragraphs in the
Environment division
 Each file-control entry in the FILE-CONTROL paragraph
Separator String Rules

 The following must end with a separator period:

 All the 4 division headers
 All the section headers
Phrase & Clause

 Phrase – “meaningless” collection of COBOL words

 Clause – collection of words or phrases that itself has a meaning like
Statements
Phrase & Clause
 Phrase

AT END

Examples
UNTIL A > B
 Clause

OCCURS 5 TIMES
LABEL RECORDS ARE STANDARDS

Examples
Statement & Clause

 Statements – group of words and/or phrases

in PROCEDURE DIVISION
 Clause – group of words and/or
phrases in DATA, ENVIRONMENT &
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION
Sentence & Entry

 Sentence – collection of statements

 Entry – collection of clauses
Sentence & Entry

 Must be terminated by a Separator Period

 A COBOL Sentence can have only one
COBOL Statement
Paragraphs

 Subgroup of Sections
Paragraphs

 2 types:
 Predefined
 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION & ENVIRONMENT DIVISION have only predefines
paragraphs
 User defined
 PROCEDURE DIVISION allows to define user defined paragraphs
Paragraphs

 Paragraph header has the para-name followed by a separator

period.
 At least one paragraph should be specified in PROCEDURE
DIVISION, if it has any sentences.
Sections

 Subgroup of Divisions
Sections

 2 types:
 Predefined
 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION & DATA DIVISION have only predefines sections
 User defined
 PROCEDURE DIVISION allows to define user defined sections
Sections