3bacs1.pptVIP

COBOL Basics 1“just the rules” Author: Michael CoughlanEdited By: Carla Lowery COBOL coding Form There are two distinct areas in COBOL that we use A Margin – begins in space 8 B Margin – begins in space 12 Area A is four characters wide and is followed by Area B. Things required to begin in the A Margin Divisions Paragraph names FD entries 01 level numbers All other sentences must start in B Margin. Programmer Supplied Names. Can not begin or end with a hyphen 30 characters or less Can not use a reserved word Uses letters A to Z, the number 0 to 9 and the hyphen. No blanks are permitted e.g. TotalPay, Gross-Pay, PrintReportHeadings, Customer10-Rec All data-names should describe the data they contain. All paragraph should describe the function of the paragraph or section. As the programmer you supply names for Paragraph names Data Names File Names Describing DATA. ? Variables – generally the field or data names in Data Division ? Literals – exact value or word ? Figurative Constants. Data-Names / Variables A variable is a named location in memory into which a program can put data and from which it can retrieve data (file being processed). A data-name is the name used to identify the area of memory reserved for the variable (field name). Variables must be described in terms of their type and size. Every variable used in a COBOL program must have a description in the DATA DIVISION. Using Variables Using Variables J O H N Using Variables My name is JOHN COBOL Data Types COBOL is not a “typed” language and the distinction between some of the data types available in the language is a little blurred. For the time being we will focus on just two data types, numeric text or string Data type is important because it determines the operations which are valid on the type. COBOL is not as rigorous in the application of typing rules as other languages. For example, some COBOL “numeric” data items may, from time to time, have values which are not “num