| Authors: | Brian Tiffin [btiffin]
Answers, quotes and contributions:
John Ellis [jrls_swla], Vincent Coen, Jim Currey, Bill Klein [wmklein],
Ganymede, Simon Sobisch [human], Rildo Pragana, Sergey Kashyrin,
Federico Priolo, Frank Swarbrick, Angus, DamonH, Parhs, Gerald Chudyk
Compiler by:
Special credits to
Gary Cutler author of the OpenCOBOL Programmers Guide
Joseph James Frantz for hosting and advocacy [aoirthoir]
|
|---|---|
| Version: | 1.1, October 19th, 2013 |
| Status: | Final. Superceded by GNU Cobol |
| Copyright: | Copyright © 2008-2013 Brian Tiffin |
| License: | Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and
no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the
section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.
|
| ChangeLog: | ChangeLog |
Note
Regarding COBOL Standards, Official COBOL Standards: There are many references to standards in this document. Very few of them are technically correct references. Apologies to all the hard working men and women of the technical committees for this unintentional slight. For specific details on what wordings should be used please see What are the Official COBOL Standards?
OpenCOBOL FAQ
OpenCOBOL is an open-source COBOL compiler. OpenCOBOL implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85 and COBOL 2002 standards, as well as many extensions of the existent COBOL compilers.
OpenCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using the native C compiler. You can build your COBOL programs on various platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
The most excellent OpenCOBOL Programmer's Guide can be found at OpenCOBOL Programmers Guide.
COBOL is an acronym for COmmon Business Oriented Language. This author has always thought of it as “Common Business” Oriented more than Common “Business Oriented”, but that emphasis is perhaps up to the reader’s point of view.
The compiler is licensed under GNU General Public License.
The run-time library is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License.
All source codes are copyright by the respective authors.
What that means, roughly, is:
You are allowed to write OpenCOBOL programs that use the libcob run time
library however you like. Closed, proprietary, commercial use is allowed
and encouraged. You can ship programs in binary form as you wish.
Modifications to the compiler itself, MUST provide access to source code and
be licensed under the GNU GPL. This ensures that no one is allowed to call
modified sources their own, nor deny anyone else the chance to copy and
re-distribute the compiler source code, including your local changes.
Please note: any verion of the compiler that is configured to use Berkeley DB
beyond version 1.85 must abide by the Oracle license and sources of the
COBOL programs that use libdb must be shipped with any binaries.
OpenCOBOL is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
OpenCOBOL 1.0 the current official release version, hosted on SourceForge.net, compiles on:
OpenCOBOL 1.1, has been built on
Yes. Debian APT, and RPM packages exist. Packages for NetBSD. Many. Google opencobol packages for any late breaking news.
A Debian Advanced Package Tool binary package exists for OpenCOBOL 1.0 as open-cobol and lists dependencies of
Thanks to the gracious efforts of Bart Martens, bartm on Debian’s .org domain.
Also check out kiska.net for binary builds on various platforms. Thanks to Sergey Kashyrin.
There are OpenCOBOL links at http://cobol.sourceforge.net
In particular, http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobol/files/open-cobol/ can come in handy, with sources and MinGW binaries at a mininum. Maybe more as time goes on.
OpenCOBOL 1.0 implements a substantial portion of COBOL 85, supports many of the advances and clarifications of COBOL 2002, and includes many extensions in common use from Micro Focus COBOL, ACUCOBOL and other existent compilers.
OpenCOBOL 1.1 implements a more substantial portion of the COBOL 85 Dialect, COBOL 2002 and a growing number of vendor extensions. Some proposed COBOL 20xx features have also been implemented. Compatibility support includes:
OpenCOBOL also includes some advanced features allowing source code such as
CALL "cfunction" USING BY REFERENCE ADDRESS OF VAR-IN-LINKAGE-SECTION.
Passing the equivalent of char**, pointer to pointer to char. Just as a small example of the level of coverage and flexibility provided by OpenCOBOL.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION UPPER-CASE(
FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE(
"This is the orginal string.";
"original"; "new"; "string"; "text"
)
)
END-DISPLAY
To allow for substitution of mixed length strings, something not normally so easy in COBOL. The above will output:
THIS IS THE NEW TEXT.
Note
While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
This author believes so. For an open source implementation of COBOL, OpenCOBOL may surprise you in the depth and breadth of its COBOL feature support, usability and robustness.
COBOL has historically been very secretive and low key. Its domain of use being very secretive and low key. COBOL programmers rarely work on systems that would allow for open internet chat regarding details, let alone existence. It is a tribute to the professionalism of these programmers that most people rarely, if ever, hear the name COBOL, a programming language with billions of lines of source code compiled and in production around the world over half a century.
OpenCOBOL is poised to change that historic trend, and allow for the long overdue sharing of wisdom that legions of COBOL developers have accumulated over 50 years of success and failure. The OpenCOBOL conversation may be more POSIX than mainframe, but there is now room to share, critique and pass on the hard lessons learned from critical systems computing. Given that millions of COBOL programmers kept billions of lines of COBOL source out of the press, surely some of the wisdom can be passed on in a way that keeps all the secrets secret while curious developers are exposed to COBOL outside the vaults.
Many people. In particular Keisuke Nishida and Roger While.
See the THANKS file in the source code archive for more names of people that have worked on the OpenCOBOL project. Roger points out that the list is woefully incomplete. To quote:
The OC project would not have been where it is today without the
significant/enormous help from many-many persons. The THANKS
file does not even do justice to this.
Why yes it does. 74 syntax tests, 170 coverage tests, and 16 data representation tests in the February 2009 pre-release. 88 syntax, 253 coverage, and 22 data tests in a 2010 cut.
From the development tarball:
$ make check
will evaluate and report on the test suite. See make check listing for a current output listing of a test run.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, maintains a COBOL 85 implementation verification suite of tests. An archive of the tests can be found at
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/ctg/cobol_form.htm
OpenCOBOL passes many of the tests included in the NIST sponsored COBOL 85 test suite. While it passes over 9000 of the tests, OpenCOBOL does not claim conformance to any level of COBOL Standard.
Instructions for use of the NIST suite is included in the build archive under:
tests/cobol85/README
Basically, it is a simple uncompress and make then sit back and relax. The scripts run OpenCOBOL over some 374 programs/modules and includes thousands of test passes.
Test Modules
------------
Core tests:
NC - COBOL nucleus tests
SM - COPY sentence tests
IC - CALL sentence tests
File I-O tests:
SQ - Sequential file I-O tests
RL - Relative file I-O tests
IX - Indexed file I-O tests
ST - SORT sentence tests
Advanced facilities:
IF - Intrinsic Function tests
With the addition of GLOBAL support, the OpenCOBOL 1.1 pre-release fails none of the attempted tests.
The summary.log from a run in February 2009:
------ Directory Information ------- --- Total Tests Information ---
Module Programs Executed Error Crash Pass Fail Deleted Inspect Total
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
NC 92 92 0 0 4363 0 6 11 4380
SM 15 15 0 0 290 0 3 1 294
IC 24 24 0 0 246 0 4 0 250
SQ 81 81 0 0 512 0 6 81 599
RL 32 32 0 0 1827 0 5 0 1832
IX 39 39 0 0 507 0 1 0 508
ST 39 39 0 0 278 0 0 0 278
SG 5 5 0 0 193 0 0 0 193
OB 5 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 16
IF 42 42 0 0 732 0 0 0 732
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
Total 374 374 0 0 8964 0 25 93 9082
OpenCOBOL 1.1 does not include support for, or limits tests within the:
Advanced facilities:
RW - REPORT SECTION tests
CM - COMMUNICATION SECTION tests
SG - Segment tests
DB - Debugging facilities tests
OB - Obsolete facilities tests
sections.
COBOL has a legacy dating back to 1959. Many features of the COBOL standard provide defaults more suitable to mainframe architecture than the personal computer a 3rd millennium OpenCOBOL developer will likely be using.
OpenCOBOL, by default, generates code optimized for big-endian hardware. Fairly dramatic speed improvements on Intel architecture can come from simple USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL-5 clauses in the DATA DIVISION.
There is a benchmark posted at http://speleotrove.com/decimal/telco.html and thanks to Bill Klein [wmklein], there is a COBOL entry. From the source code at http://home.comcast.net/~wmklein/DOX/TELCO.txt you should only have to modify
Input-Output Section.
File-Control.
Select InFile Assign to
"C:\expon180.1e6".
Select OutFile Assign to
"C:\TELCO.TXT"
Line
Sequential.
to point to the correct filename for your local copy of the benchmark million entry file and a suitable OutFile name for a clean compile and run.
In summary, the benchmark reads a large input file containing a suitably distributed list of telephone call durations (each in seconds). For each call, a charging rate is chosen and the price calculated and rounded to hundreths. One or two taxes are applied (depending on the type of call) and the total cost is converted to a character string and written to an output file. Running totals of the total cost and taxes are kept; these are displayed at the end of the benchmark for verification.
A run on an older pentium 4 and the million number file gave:
$ echo 'N' | time ./telco
Enter 'N' to skip calculations:
0.46user 1.08system 0:01.61elapsed 96%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+134776outputs (0major+345minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ echo '' | time ./telco
Enter 'N' to skip calculations:
11.37user 1.41system 0:12.95elapsed 98%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
24inputs+134776outputs (0major+360minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ tail TELCO.TXT
35 D | 0.31 0.02 0.01 | 0.34
193 D | 1.73 0.11 0.05 | 1.89
792 L | 1.03 0.06 | 1.09
661 D | 5.91 0.39 0.20 | 6.50
44 L | 0.06 0.00 | 0.06
262 L | 0.34 0.02 | 0.36
-------------+----------------------------------------+-------------
Totals: | 922,067.11 57,628.30 25,042.17 | 1,004,737.58
Start-Time:09:37:23.93
End-Time:09:37:36.83
A more recent 1.1 pre-release, on a dual quad-core Xeon box running Linux SLES 10 64-bit:
35 D | 0.31 0.02 0.01 | 0.34
193 D | 1.73 0.11 0.05 | 1.89
792 L | 1.03 0.06 | 1.09
661 D | 5.91 0.39 0.20 | 6.50
44 L | 0.06 0.00 | 0.06
262 L | 0.34 0.02 | 0.36
-------------+----------------------------------------+-------------
Totals: | 922,067.11 57,628.30 25,042.17 | 1,004,737.58
Start-Time:21:40:48.52
End-Time:21:40:51.92
3.4 seconds cache-hot. Not bad.
Yes. Through standard IO redirection and the extended ACCEPT ... FROM ENVIRONMENT ... feature, OpenCOBOL is more than capable of supporting advanced Common Gateway Interface programming. See How do I use OpenCOBOL for CGI? for a sample Hello Web program.
For those developers looking to serve OpenCOBOL applications on hosted systems and no super user privileges, see How do I use LD_RUN_PATH with OpenCOBOL? for some pointers.
Yes, but not out of the box. There is not currently (February 2013) anything that ships with the product.
Third party extensions for Tcl/Tk and bindings for GTK+ do allow for graphical user interfaces. See Does OpenCOBOL support the GIMP ToolKit, GTK+? and Can OpenCOBOL interface with Tcl/Tk?.
The expectation is that GTK+ will be completely bound as a callable interface. That is currently (February 2013) not the case, with perhaps 2% of the GTK+ functionality wrapped (but with that 2%, fully functional graphical interfaces are possible).
The Tcl/Tk engine is already quite complete but does place most of the burden of GUI development squarely on the Tk side.
Vala will also open up a quick path to GUI development with OpenCOBOL. There is already an embedded web browser using the Vala bindings to WebKit. See Can OpenCOBOL interface with Vala? for a lot more details.
Yes and no. There is no IDE that ships with the product. The add1tocobol team is currently (February 2013) at work creating extensions for the GNAT Programming Studio. This is working out quite nicely and will likely be the IDE of choice for the add1tocobol OpenCOBOL developers.
See Can the GNAT Programming Studio be used with OpenCOBOL? for more information.
There is also the Eclipse IDE and a major project for integrating COBOL but this will not be OpenCOBOL specific.
Many text editors have systems in place for invoking compilers. SciTE, Crimson Editor, vi and emacs to name but a few of the hundreds that support edit/compile/test development cycles.
See Does OpenCOBOL work with make? for some information on command line compile assistance.
Depends. OpenCOBOL is still in active development. Feature coverage is growing, and while the current implementation offers great coverage, applicability to any given situation would need to analyzed and risks evaluated before commitment to production use.
The licensing allows for commercial use, but OpenCOBOL also ships with notice of indemnity, meaning that there are no guarantees when using OpenCOBOL, directly or indirectly.
There may be a time when commercial support of OpenCOBOL is offered, but at the time of writing no known offering exists.
Search google just in case!
And yes, OpenCOBOL is used in production environments.
From [Roger]:
Incidentally, OC has been (and still is) used in production
environments since 2005.
(This includes projects that I personally worked on plus other
projects reported to me; these worldwide)
The OC project would not have been where it is today without the
significant/enormous help from many-many persons. The THANKS
file does not even do justice to this.
Reported on opencobol.org, The Nagasaki Prefecture, population 1.44 million and 30,000 civil employees is using OpenCOBOL in support of its payroll management system. A team of 3 ported and maintain a suite of 200 COBOL programs, mingled with Perl and specialized reporting modules, running on Nec PX9000 big iron and Xeon servers.
Another post from opencobol.org in April 2009, reprinted with permission.
OpenCOBOL viability
For those concerned about the viability of OpenCOBOL in a production
environment, I offer our situation as an example.
We started loading OpenCOBOL to a Debian (Etch) Parisc box in mid March. With
some valuable help from this forum we were up and running in a few days.
We then explored the CGI capabilities and moved our home-brewed CGI handler
(written in HP3000 Cobol) over. We ended up changing only a few lines.
As Marcr's post indicates, we found a MySql wrapper and made some minor
changes to it.
Starting the second week in April we were in full development of new systems
for commercial use.
Please accept our congratulations to the community and our gratitude for the
help from the forum.
jimc
Another reference by Jim, some 6 months later in February 2010, which seems to be enough time for any rose-coloured glass effect to have worn off if it was going to.
For our part, the answer is yes.
You may want to read an earlier thread about this. Search on OpenCOBOL
viability.
Having worked with Cobol since the 1960's, my mindset is that no
conversion is automatic.
In our case we are not converting from a specific dialect like MF,
but instead are either writing entirely new systems or are changing
features (making them web based for example) in older systems.
There are some identified failures in OpenCOBOL execution that have
been discussed in this forum. We have found them to be inconsequential
and simply work around them. Then again I do not remember working with
a bug-free compiler.
Our environment is Debian Linux, OpenCOBOL 1.1, MySQL, ISAM (the one
provided with the 1.1 prerelease), HTML (via CGI) and a new PreProcessor
to relieve the tedium of writing SQL statements.
If you have some "nay sayers" in your organization and would like some
support I will be happy to speak with them.
jimc
I hope people don’t mind a little advertising in this FAQ, but Jim has done a lot for OpenCOBOL and his company is a community minded company. http://www.curreyadkins.com
Another from opencobol.org
As part of an initial study of COBOL compilers for finding an alternative to
that of MicroFocus, OpenCobol was selected to develop a model for the
compilation of a public accounting package (1.5 million lines).
The model had to validate this choice, including with the use of sequential
indexed files, with OpenCobol version 0.33 and small adjustments to the COBOL
code (mainly using reserved keywords and keywords not implemented).
After the functional qualification of this model, the software is in production
since July, 2011 under Linux RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 Advanced Server 32-bit
virtualized environment VMWARE ESX – 4 GB of RAM - processor dual AMD Opteron
6176 (tm).
The software package is deployed for 650 users whose 150 connected
simultaneously, at the peaks of activity and in comparison with the previous
platform on AIX 4.3 and MicroFocus, performance gain is in a report, at best,
1-10 (batch of exploitation of entrustment), at worst, 1 to 4 (batch of
recalculation).
With the rise of the package version, a functional validation is in progress
since September 2011 with OpenCobol version 1.1 under Linux RedHat Enterprise
Linux 5 Advanced Server 64-bit and dual Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8356 (tm)
processor. No loss of performance related to the new version of OpenCobol (but
related to the package of 10% to 20% loss) after campaign in the two
environments.
The COBOL FAQ by William M Klein is a great place to start.
A google of the search words “COBOL” or “OpenCOBOL” are bound to lead to enough days worth of reading of in-depth articles, opinions and technical information to satisfy the greatest of curiosities.
The COBUG site COBOL User Groups is also a wonderful resource for OpenCOBOL developers.
This is highly subject to change, but currently (February 2013) a Draft of 20xx is available at http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/index.htm and in particular http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/files/std.zip
Note
While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
Current project activities are at SourceForge. The opencobol.org website is probably a good place search as well. add1tocobol.com is a place to find out about a few of the fan initiatives. (An older archive has been stashed at http://oldsite.add1tocobol.com)
A very well written and masterful OpenCOBOL reference and COBOL development guide. By Gary Cutler, OpenCOBOL Programmers Guide.
Absolutely. Visit the opencobol.org website and either post a message asking what needs to be done, or perhaps join the development mailing list to find out the current state of development. See Is there an OpenCOBOL mailing list? for some details. OpenCOBOL is a GPL licensed open source project and while [Roger] is the lead developer he is quite open to code submissions. Having a central point of development allows for consistency and the very high level of quality control enjoyed by OpenCOBOL users.
A new project has started to see native language support in the cobc compile and run-time systems. Please see http://www.opencobol.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1127&forum=1 for details if you think you can help.
Hi folks!
We're starting to translate upcoming versions into different
languages. The necessary code changes for OC 2.0 were already done.
Now we need translators.
Before posting every stuff here I want to gather the translators
here. Who is able and willing to translate the strings (currently 667)
into what language(s)
[or has somebody who does this]?
From the last discussions I remember people wanting to do this for
French, Italian, Spanish, German but I don't remember who exactly said
that he/she will help. We already have a Japanese translation, but
that needs an heavy update.
...
Yes. Visit opencobol.org for details. The OpenCOBOL development mailing list is graciously hosted by SourceForge. The ML archive is available at http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=open-cobol-list and once you have subscribed, the list will accept messages at the open-cobol-list email destination at lists.sourceforge.net.
The COBOL 85 standard is documented in
This is highly subject to change, but currently (February 2013) a Draft of 20xx is available at http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/index.htm and in particular http://www.cobolstandard.info/j4/files/std.zip
Note
While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
Absolutely. Being an open source system, all sources that are used to build the compiler are available and free.
The opencobol.org site has links to release and pre-release archives. Most distributions of GNU/Linux will also have source code bundles. For example
$ apt-get source open-cobol
on Debian GNU/Linux will retrieve the most recent released package sources.
A ROBODoc experimental project to document the source codes is hosted at ocrobo. See ROBODoc Support for a sample configuration file.
This is mentioned elsewhere, but the OpenCOBOL compiler source code bundle works beautifully with Doxygen. Mix application and compiler sources for overwhelmingly complete call graphs.
Is there OpenCOBOL API documentation?
Dimitri van Heesch’s 1.7.4 release of Doxygen, http://www.doxygen.org was used to produce http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxy/.
Along with Gary’s OCic.cbl http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxyapp/ to demonstrate how easy it is to generate world class, audit friendly source code documentation, drilled right down to how the COBOL runtime is interacting with the operating system.
I wrote a Pygments lexer, mushed it into a local copy of Pygments and then call a rst2html-pygments.py program. Requires a fair amount of mucking about. See ReStructuredText and Pygments for some details.
As of January 2013, the COBOL lexer is in mainline Pygments. No more mucking about required. Georg Brandl did a wonderful job of refactoring the COBOL highlighter into his Pygments system. Many thanks to Georg, Tim and team Pocoo.
http://bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/pygments-main/pull-request/72/adding-an-opencobol-lexer
Due to robot spam, new registrations on opencobol.org were disabled in 2012.
The active site is now hosted by SourceForge, at
I came up with Publicus Negotiatio Cursus Lingua, and then smarter people suggested:
I like the last one. ccpcn, pronounce that as kick-pickin’.
Thanks to Ray, Paul, and Daniel on LinkedIn.
Although open source COBOL is still rare, that is slowly changing. This entry will be a perpetually growing list, until the universe is at peace.
Last updated: June 11th, 2013. If you know of a worthy entry, drop me a note.
OpenCOBOL is hosted on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/
Other projects include:
The good folk that host this FAQ, also host http://oldsite.add1tocobol.com and http://add1tocobol.com
Wim Niemans’ Project Stickleback. http://www.mycobol.net/ and http://stickleback.nlbox.com/
Maybe.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup or mustard.
John Krueger
A determined coder can write COBOL programs in any language.
Author: unknown
Rumour has it that the object oriented specification for COBOL was code named
ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL.
Author: unknown
A less verbose, more concise version; very unCOBOL that
ADD 1 TO COBOL.
Thanks to aoirthoir
And, just because;
ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING OpenCOBOL
A common disrepect of COBOL joke is that the acronym stands for:
Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language.
Author unkown
We know better. The reality is:
Can’t Obsolesce Because Of Legacy. And why would you want to?
Brian Tiffin
COBOL
Certainly Old But Often Limber.
Brian Tiffin
Ruby on Rails? Don’t forget COBOL ON COGS.
Eat COBOL, 200 billion lines can’t be wrong.
Brian Tiffin
What did COBOL yell to the escaping thief?
STOP RUN RETURNING NOW.
Brian Tiffin
A COBOL programmer’s husband asks, “Honey can you go to the store and get some milk. And if they have eggs, get a dozen.” After twenty minutes she returns and flops 12 bags of milk on the table. He looks at her curiously, “Honey, why did you do that?” She responds flatly, “They had eggs.”
Author unknown
What did COBOL reply to the executive? Yes, I can
PERFORM JUMPS THRU HOOPS.
Brian Tiffin
What did OpenCOBOL reply to the executive? Sir, I can
PERFORM JUMPS THRU FLAMING-HOOPS UNTIL HELL-FREEZES-OVER.
And being COBOL, I have to show you how little code it takes:
identification division.
program-id. freeze.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 hell pic 9.
88 hell-freezes-over value 1.
procedure division.
perform jumps thru flaming-hoops until hell-freezes-over.
stop run.
jumps.
flaming-hoops.
divide 1 by 0 giving hell.
Wrote COBOL all morning, all afternoon and into the night. Another carpe, diem’ed.
Brian Tiffin, ripped from a meme, then farberized
Ok, sorry for the lame.
Here is a link to some actual humour; Bob the Dinosaur, thanks to Scott Adams.
History
Starting in 1959, a committee was formed under the sponsorship of the United States Department of Defense to recommend a short range option regarding business computing. The Conference on Data System Languages (CODASYL) led by Joe Wegstein of National Bureau of Standards (now National Institute of Standards and Technology) developed a new language, and created the first standardized business computer programming language.
The COmmon Business Oriented Language acronym was announced on September 18th, 1959.
Late in 1960, essentially the same COBOL program ran on two different hardware platforms, and stakeholders espied the potential for fulfilling the objective of industry wide, compatible business systems.
Admiral Grace Hopper is affectionately referred to as the mother of the COBOL language as she and her previous work with FLOW-MATIC greatly influenced the specifications of the first COBOL.
Standards have been published for:
and these roughly correspond to the year they were produced. Note the y2k flavour of four digit naming occurred after the millennium change.
Estimates vary, but it is entirely reasonable to believe that of the some 300,000,000,000 (three hundred thousand million) lines of computer source code in production as of 1995, 200,000,000,000 (two hundred thousand million) lines were COBOL. A full 2/3rds of the world’s source code at the time.
See the Wikipedia entry for COBOL for a lot more details.
Many thanks to William Klein, [wmklein] for details on what wordings are to be used when referencing COBOL Standards:
There are several references to "COBOL 85" and these are often
distinguished from "Intrinsic Functions".
The official (but really obscure) term that should be used is "Amended
Third Standard COBOL". The "clearer" (and IMHO better) term that should
be used is something like
- "'85 Standard COBOL with its amendments"
By 1991 (actually 1993 for ISO rather than ANSI) there was no such thing
as "just '85 Standard COBOL". The only recognized Standard was the
"base" document (X3.23-1985) ALONG with its two amendments
- Intrinsic Functions Module Amendment
- Corrections Amendment
An interesting related fact is that the "Intrinsic Functions Module" was
OPTIONAL in the ANSI and ISO COBOL Standards but was REQUIRED (at the
HIGH level) for FIPS COBOL. As the "certification tests" were aimed at
getting US government contracts, most vendors (who were still doing
certification) actually treated Intrinsic Functions required not
optional for "High-level" certification. (They were NOT included in the
FIPS intermediate certification process).
Bottom-Line:
Although some intrinsic functions were added in the '02 Standard (and
more are included in the draft revision), it is not proper (in my
opinion) to distinguish between supporting the '85 Standard and
supporting intrinsic functions.
P.S. The corrections amendment did make some technical changes but all
of these were included in the '02 Standard. Therefore, hopefully, what
it did won't impact OpenCOBOL much.
Note
While OpenCOBOL can be held to a high standard of quality and robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to be a “Standard Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
OpenCOBOL was initially developed by Keisuke Nishida [Keisuke] from experience working on TinyCOBOL originally developed by Rildo Pragana.
The first public release was version 0.9.0 on January 25th, 2002.
Development continued apace, with version 0.30 released by Keisuke on August 8th, 2004.
Roger While [Roger] then took up the role as lead developer on October 30th, 2004.
OpenCOBOL 1.0 was released December 27th, 2007 by Roger While [Roger].
The decision to go 1.0 from the 0.33 version followed many incremental enhancements from 2005 through till late in 2007.
OpenCOBOL 1.1 pre-release became active on December 27th, 2007 and major developments occured publically until February, 2009. The pre-release source tar can be found at OpenCOBOL 1.1 with installer instructions at OpenCOBOL Install and in the INSTALLING text file of the sources.
The 1.1 pre-release of February 2009 was tagged as release on SourceForge in May of 2012. The 1.1 community edition is in development at http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol
After a download and extract from http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/files/latest/download?source=files
$ tar xvf open-cobol-1.1.tar.gz
$ cd open-cobol-1.1
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig
will place a new set of binaries in /usr/local, ready to roll.
Be sure to see What are the configure options available for building OpenCOBOL? for all the available options for building from sources.
If you build a pre-release OC1.1, you will be able to compile the occurlrefresh.cbl (with occurlsym.cpy) application and an early occurl.c libCURL wrapper that allows file transfers off the Internet. occurlrefresh includes default filenames for retrieving the most recent pre-release source archive and only updates the local copy if there has been a newer upstream release.
Thanks to [aoirthoir] for hosting these; currently (February 2013) at
and then simply
$ ./occurlrefresh
to download any new development archives. libCURL tests the modification timestamps, so this procedure is very resource efficient, only pulling from the server if there is something new. A -b option is accepted that will spawn off tar, configure and the make pass to compile a fresh copy. -b does not do an install, you’ll still have to do that manually after verifying that everything is ok.
Using OpenCOBOL
Installation instructions can be found at OpenCOBOL Install.
$ wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/files/open-cobol/1.1/open-cobol-1.1.tar.gz
$ tar xvf open-cobol-1.1.tar.gz
$ cd open-cobol-1.1
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig
The Debian binary package makes installing OpenCOBOL 1.0 a snap. From root or using sudo
$ apt-get install open-cobol
Build from sources under Cygwin or MinGW. Follow the instructions from the site listed above, or read the OC_GettingStarted_Windows document by [wmklein] available online at
From Ganymede on opencobol.org
HOWTO: Installling OpenCOBOL 1.0.0 (with BerkeleyDB) under Mac OS 10.5.x-10.6.x
On Mac OS X 10.5.x/10.6.x, I have successfully managed to compile and install
OpenCOBOL 1.0.0 (including libdb linking), and am now happily compiling
production systems with it. It's not *entirely* straightforward, as it involves
installing GMP via MacPorts -- the *only way* that GMP will install properly
because of some eccentricities in Apple's Xcode development tools (particularly
with relation to c99 in gcc), unless you are willing to patch things by hand.
In addition, the earlier BerkeleyDB versions (the 4.x.x ones available via
MacPorts) cause some strange ioctl errors at runtime under Mac OS X Leopard and
Snow Leopard when attempting certain types of ORGANIZATION IS INDEXED
operations; precisely what conditions causes this I am yet to fully ascertain.
The upshot of it is that in order to compile and run a complete OpenCOBOL 1.0.0
installation on Leopard and Snow Leopard, one has to 1) install GMP via
MacPorts; but 2) compile and install a recent version of BerkeleyDB natively.
Probably at some point, I'm going to package this into a pretty-pretty
precompiled .app and .dmg along with a rudimentary Cocoa compiler interface.
Until then, however -- my COBOL on Mac comrades! -- please do the following:
-- INSTALLATION STEPS (Tested on both 10.5.x and 10.6.x) --
1) Download an appropriate MacPorts distribution for your OS:
<http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/>
If you want to use the installer:
* For 10.5.x: MacPorts-1.8.0-10.5-Leopard.dmg
* For 10.6.x: MacPorts-1.8.0-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg
From source, MacPorts-1.8.0.tar.gz is confirmed to work on both versions.
NB: Make sure PATH is properly set by install in your active user's ~/.profile.
2) Update MacPorts: sudo port -d selfupdate
3) Install GMP with MacPorts: sudo port install gmp
4) Download the Oracle Berkeley DB 5.0.21 (or later) .tar.gz source:
<http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db/db/index.html>
5) Untar, cd to the Berkeley DB source folder, then:
cd /build_unix
6) Do the following to configure, make and install Berkeley DB:
../dist/configure
make
sudo make install
7) Download and untar OpenCOBOL 1.0.0, cd to directory
8) Run ./configure, setting CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS as below (CHANGING ANY
VERSION-SPECIFIC PATHS TO WHAT YOU JUST INSTALLED) as follows:
./configure
CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/local/var/macports/software/gmp/5.0.1_0/opt/local/include/
-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.0/include/"
LDFLAGS="-L/opt/local/var/macports/software/gmp/5.0.1_0/opt/local/lib
-L/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.0/lib/"
9) Make and install:
make
sudo make install
10) Et voila! Try exiting the directory and invoking cobc.
-- YOU SHOULD THEN BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS: --
phrygia.ganymede-labs.com:bottles ganymede$ sw_vers
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.5.6
BuildVersion: 9G55
phrygia.ganymede-labs.com:bottles ganymede$ cobc -V
cobc (OpenCOBOL) 1.0.0
Copyright (C) 2001-2007 Keisuke Nishida
Copyright (C) 2007 Roger While
phrygia.ganymede-labs.com:bottles ganymede$ cobc -v -x bottles.cbl
preprocessing bottles.cbl into
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.cob translating
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.cob into
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.c
gcc -pipe -c -I/usr/local/include
-I/opt/local/var/macports/software/gmp/5.0.1_0/opt/local/include/
-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.0/include/ -I/usr/local/include -O2 -Wno-unused
-fsigned-char -Wno-pointer-sign -o
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.o
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.c gcc -pipe
-L/opt/local/var/macports/software/gmp/5.0.1_0/opt/local/lib
-L/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.0/lib/ -o bottles
/var/folders/KI/KI15WC0KGMmvvO980RztgU+++TI/-Tmp-//cob75450_0.o
-L/opt/local/var/macports/software/gmp/5.0.1_0/opt/local/lib
-L/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.5.0/lib/ -L/usr/local/lib -lcob -lm -lgmp
-L/usr/local/lib -lintl -liconv -lc -R/usr/local/lib -lncurses -ldb
With lots of sloppy LINKAGE SECTION kisses,
-- Ganymede
configure is a defacto standard development tool for POSIX compliant operating systems, in particular GNU/Linux. It examines the current environment and creates a Makefile suitable for the target computer and the package being built.
For OpenCOBOL, the ./configure script accepts --help as a command line option to display all of the available configuration choices.
`configure' configures OpenCOBOL 1.1 to adapt to many kinds of systems.
Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...
To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE. See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.
Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.
Configuration:
-h, --help display this help and exit
--help=short display options specific to this package
--help=recursive display the short help of all the included packages
-V, --version display version information and exit
---quiet, --silent do not print `checking...' messages
--cache-file=FILE cache test results in FILE [disabled]
-C, --config-cache alias for `--cache-file=config.cache'
-n, --no-create do not create output files
--srcdir=DIR find the sources in DIR [configure dir or `..']
Installation directories:
--prefix=PREFIX install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
[/usr/local]
--exec-prefix=EPREFIX install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX
[PREFIX]
By default, `make install' will install all the files in
`/usr/local/bin', `/usr/local/lib' etc. You can specify
an installation prefix other than `/usr/local' using `--prefix',
for instance `--prefix=$HOME'.
For better control, use the options below.
Fine tuning of the installation directories:
--bindir=DIR user executables [EPREFIX/bin]
--sbindir=DIR system admin executables [EPREFIX/sbin]
--libexecdir=DIR program executables [EPREFIX/libexec]
--datadir=DIR read-only architecture-independent data [PREFIX/share]
--sysconfdir=DIR read-only single-machine data [PREFIX/etc]
--sharedstatedir=DIR modifiable architecture-independent data [PREFIX/com]
--localstatedir=DIR modifiable single-machine data [PREFIX/var]
--libdir=DIR object code libraries [EPREFIX/lib]
--includedir=DIR C header files [PREFIX/include]
--oldincludedir=DIR C header files for non-gcc [/usr/include]
--infodir=DIR info documentation [PREFIX/info]
--mandir=DIR man documentation [PREFIX/man]
Program names:
--program-prefix=PREFIX prepend PREFIX to installed program names
--program-suffix=SUFFIX append SUFFIX to installed program names
--program-transform-name=PROGRAM run sed PROGRAM on installed program names
System types:
--build=BUILD configure for building on BUILD [guessed]
--host=HOST cross-compile to build programs to run on HOST [BUILD]
Optional Features:
--disable-FEATURE do not include FEATURE (same as --enable-FEATURE=no)
--enable-FEATURE[=ARG] include FEATURE [ARG=yes]
--enable-maintainer-mode enable make rules and dependencies not useful
(and sometimes confusing) to the casual installer
--disable-dependency-tracking speeds up one-time build
--enable-dependency-tracking do not reject slow dependency extractors
--enable-experimental (OpenCOBOL) enable experimental code (Developers only!)
--enable-param-check (OpenCOBOL) enable CALL parameter checking
--enable-shared[=PKGS]
build shared libraries [default=yes]
--enable-static[=PKGS]
build static libraries [default=yes]
--enable-fast-install[=PKGS]
optimize for fast installation [default=yes]
--disable-libtool-lock avoid locking (might break parallel builds)
--disable-rpath do not hardcode runtime library paths
--disable-nls do not use Native Language Support
Optional Packages:
--with-PACKAGE[=ARG] use PACKAGE [ARG=yes]
--without-PACKAGE do not use PACKAGE (same as --with-PACKAGE=no)
--with-cc=<cc> (OpenCOBOL) specify the C compiler used by cobc
--with-seqra-extfh (OpenCOBOL) Use external SEQ/RAN file handler
--with-cisam (OpenCOBOL) Use CISAM for ISAM I/O
--with-disam (OpenCOBOL) Use DISAM for ISAM I/O
--with-vbisam (OpenCOBOL) Use VBISAM for ISAM I/O
--with-index-extfh (OpenCOBOL) Use external ISAM file handler
--with-db1 (OpenCOBOL) use Berkeley DB 1.85 (libdb-1.85)
--with-db (OpenCOBOL) use Berkeley DB 3.0 or later (libdb)(default)
--with-lfs64 (OpenCOBOL) use large file system for file I/O (default)
--with-dl (OpenCOBOL) use system dynamic loader (default)
--with-patch-level (OpenCOBOL) define a patch level (default 0)
--with-varse (OpenCOBOL) define variable sequential format (default 0)
--with-gnu-ld assume the C compiler uses GNU ld [default=no]
--with-pic try to use only PIC/non-PIC objects [default=use
both]
--with-tags[=TAGS]
include additional configurations [automatic]
--with-gnu-ld assume the C compiler uses GNU ld default=no
--with-libiconv-prefix[=DIR] search for libiconv in DIR/include and DIR/lib
--without-libiconv-prefix don't search for libiconv in includedir and libdir
--with-libintl-prefix[=DIR] search for libintl in DIR/include and DIR/lib
--without-libintl-prefix don't search for libintl in includedir and libdir
Some influential environment variables:
CC C compiler command
CFLAGS C compiler flags
LDFLAGS linker flags, e.g. -L<lib dir> if you have libraries in a
nonstandard directory <lib dir>
CPPFLAGS C/C++ preprocessor flags, e.g. -I<include dir> if you have
headers in a nonstandard directory <include dir>
CPP C preprocessor
CXXCPP C++ preprocessor
Use these variables to override the choices made by 'configure' or to help
it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations.
Report bugs to <open-cobol-list@lists.sourceforge.net>.
OpenCOBOL relies on a native C compiler with POSIX compatibility. GCC being a freely available compiler collection supported by most operating systems currently (February 2013) in use.
OpenCOBOL requires the following external libraries to be installed:
NOTE - Libtool is not required for Linux and Windows (including MinGW and Cygwin)
The following libraries are optional:
OpenCOBOL is a multi-stage command line driven compiler. Command line options control what stages are performed during processing.
OpenCOBOL produces intermediate C source code that is then passed to a configured C compiler and other tools. the GNU C compiler, gcc being a standard.
The main tool, cobc, by default, produces modules, linkable shared object files.
Documenting the output of the various stages of OpenCOBOL compilation.
$ cat hello.cob
000100* HELLO.COB OpenCOBOL FAQ example
000200 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000300 PROGRAM-ID. hello.
000400 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000500 DISPLAY "Hello World!".
000600 STOP RUN.
$ cobc -E hello.cob
Preprocess only pass. One operation of the preprocessor is to convert FIXED format to FREE format. COPY includes are also read in along with REPLACE substitution. The above command displayed:
# 1 "hello.cob"
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. hello.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY "Hello World!".
STOP RUN.
to standard out.
$ cobc -C hello.cob
Translate only; preprocesses and then translates the COBOL sources into C. You can examine these files to get a good sense of how the OpenCOBOL environment interacts with the native C facilities. OpenCOBOL 1.1 produced hello.c.h and hello.c.
/* Generated by cobc 1.1.0 */
/* Generated from hello.cob */
/* Generated at Oct 04 2008 00:19:36 EDT */
/* OpenCOBOL build date Oct 01 2008 22:15:19 */
/* OpenCOBOL package date Oct 01 2008 16:31:26 CEST */
/* Compile command cobc -C hello.cob */
/* PROGRAM-ID : hello */
static unsigned char b_5[4] __attribute__((aligned)); /* COB-CRT-STATUS */
static unsigned char b_1[4] __attribute__((aligned)); /* RETURN-CODE */
static unsigned char b_2[4] __attribute__((aligned)); /* SORT-RETURN */
static unsigned char b_3[4] __attribute__((aligned)); /* NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERS */
/* attributes */
static cob_field_attr a_1 = {16, 4, 0, 0, NULL};
static cob_field_attr a_2 = {33, 0, 0, 0, NULL};
/* fields */
static cob_field f_5 = {4, b_5, &a_1}; /* COB-CRT-STATUS */
/* constants */
static cob_field c_1 = {12, (unsigned char *)"Hello World!", &a_2};
/* ---------------------------------------------- */
/* Generated by cobc 1.1.0 */
/* Generated from hello.cob */
/* Generated at Oct 04 2008 00:19:36 EDT */
/* OpenCOBOL build date Oct 01 2008 22:15:19 */
/* OpenCOBOL package date Oct 01 2008 16:31:26 CEST */
/* Compile command cobc -C hello.cob */
#define __USE_STRING_INLINES 1
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <libcob.h>
#define COB_SOURCE_FILE "hello.cob"
#define COB_PACKAGE_VERSION "1.1"
#define COB_PATCH_LEVEL 0
/* function prototypes */
static int hello_ (const int);
int hello (void);
/* functions */
int
hello ()
{
return hello_ (0);
}
/* end functions */
static int
hello_ (const int entry)
{
#include "hello.c.h" /* local variables */
static int initialized = 0;
static cob_field *cob_user_parameters[COB_MAX_FIELD_PARAMS];
static cob_module module = { NULL, NULL, &f_5, NULL, cob_user_parameters, 0, '.', '$', ',', 1, 1, 1, 0};
/* perform frame stack */
int frame_index;
struct frame {
int perform_through;
void *return_address;
} frame_stack[255];
/* Start of function code */
if (unlikely(entry < 0)) {
if (!initialized) {
return 0;
}
initialized = 0;
return 0;
}
module.next = cob_current_module;
cob_current_module = &module;
if (unlikely(initialized == 0))
{
if (!cob_initialized) {
cob_fatal_error (COB_FERROR_INITIALIZED);
}
cob_check_version (COB_SOURCE_FILE, COB_PACKAGE_VERSION, COB_PATCH_LEVEL);
if (module.next)
cob_set_cancel ((const char *)"hello", (void *)hello, (void *)hello_);
(*(int *) (b_1)) = 0;
(*(int *) (b_2)) = 0;
(*(int *) (b_3)) = 0;
memset (b_5, 48, 4);
initialized = 1;
}
/* initialize frame stack */
frame_index = 0;
frame_stack[0].perform_through = -1;
/* initialize number of call params */
(*(int *) (b_3)) = cob_call_params;
cob_save_call_params = cob_call_params;
goto l_2;
/* PROCEDURE DIVISION */
/* hello: */
l_2:;
/* MAIN SECTION: */
/* MAIN PARAGRAPH: */
/* hello.cob:5: DISPLAY */
{
cob_new_display (0, 1, 1, &c_1);
}
/* hello.cob:6: STOP */
{
cob_stop_run ((*(int *) (b_1)));
}
cob_current_module = cob_current_module->next;
return (*(int *) (b_1));
}
/* end function stuff */
Using the -S switch asks cobc to ask the C compiler tool chain to not process farther than the assembler code generation phase.
$ cobc -S hello.cob
.file "cob9141_0.c"
.text
.globl hello
.type hello, @function
hello:
pushl %ebp
movl %esp, %ebp
subl $8, %esp
movl $0, (%esp)
call hello_
leave
ret
.size hello, .-hello
.data
.align 4
.type module.5786, @object
.size module.5786, 28
module.5786:
.long 0
.long 0
.long f_5.5782
.long 0
.long cob_user_parameters.5785
.byte 0
.byte 46
.byte 36
.byte 44
.byte 1
.byte 1
.byte 1
.byte 0
.local cob_user_parameters.5785
.comm cob_user_parameters.5785,256,32
.local initialized.5784
.comm initialized.5784,4,4
.section .rodata
.LC0:
.string "Hello World!"
.data
.align 4
.type c_1.5783, @object
.size c_1.5783, 12
c_1.5783:
.long 12
.long .LC0
.long a_2.5781
.align 4
.type f_5.5782, @object
.size f_5.5782, 12
f_5.5782:
.long 4
.long b_5.5776
.long a_1.5780
.align 4
.type a_2.5781, @object
.size a_2.5781, 8
a_2.5781:
.byte 33
.byte 0
.byte 0
.byte 0
.long 0
.align 4
.type a_1.5780, @object
.size a_1.5780, 8
a_1.5780:
.byte 16
.byte 4
.byte 0
.byte 0
.long 0
.local b_3.5779
.comm b_3.5779,4,16
.local b_2.5778
.comm b_2.5778,4,16
.local b_1.5777
.comm b_1.5777,4,16
.local b_5.5776
.comm b_5.5776,4,16
.section .rodata
.LC1:
.string "1.1"
.LC2:
.string "hello.cob"
.LC3:
.string "hello"
.text
.type hello_, @function
hello_:
pushl %ebp
movl %esp, %ebp
subl $2072, %esp
movl 8(%ebp), %eax
shrl $31, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
je .L4
movl initialized.5784, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
jne .L5
movl $0, -2052(%ebp)
jmp .L6
.L5:
movl $0, initialized.5784
movl $0, -2052(%ebp)
jmp .L6
.L4:
movl cob_current_module, %eax
movl %eax, module.5786
movl $module.5786, cob_current_module
movl initialized.5784, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
sete %al
movzbl %al, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
je .L7
movl cob_initialized, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
jne .L8
movl $0, (%esp)
call cob_fatal_error
.L8:
movl $0, 8(%esp)
movl $.LC1, 4(%esp)
movl $.LC2, (%esp)
call cob_check_version
movl module.5786, %eax
testl %eax, %eax
je .L9
movl $hello_, 8(%esp)
movl $hello, 4(%esp)
movl $.LC3, (%esp)
call cob_set_cancel
.L9:
movl $b_1.5777, %eax
movl $0, (%eax)
movl $b_2.5778, %eax
movl $0, (%eax)
movl $b_3.5779, %eax
movl $0, (%eax)
movl $4, 8(%esp)
movl $48, 4(%esp)
movl $b_5.5776, (%esp)
call memset
movl $1, initialized.5784
.L7:
movl $0, -4(%ebp)
movl $-1, -2044(%ebp)
movl $b_3.5779, %edx
movl cob_call_params, %eax
movl %eax, (%edx)
movl cob_call_params, %eax
movl %eax, cob_save_call_params
.L10:
movl $c_1.5783, 12(%esp)
movl $1, 8(%esp)
movl $1, 4(%esp)
movl $0, (%esp)
call cob_new_display
movl $b_1.5777, %eax
movl (%eax), %eax
movl %eax, (%esp)
call cob_stop_run
.L6:
movl -2052(%ebp), %eax
leave
ret
.size hello_, .-hello_
.ident "GCC: (Debian 4.3.1-9) 4.3.1"
.section .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits
Produces hello.s.
$ cobc -m hello.cob
Build dynamically loadable module. The is the default behaviour. This example produces hello.so or hello.dll.
$ cobc -b hello.cob
will do the same thing, but in this case, the extended Build is the same as the single Module build with -m. -b will build a dynamically loadable module that includes all of the entry points created from multiple command line inputs. It’s fun; you can mix .cob, .c, and -l libs and OpenCOBOL does the right thing glueing it all together. -b Build is suited to Programming In The Large and using cobcrun.
$ cobcrun hello
Hello World!
Will scan the DSO hello.so, and then link, load, and execute hello.
$ cobc -x hello.cob
Create an executable program. This examples produces hello or hello.exe.
This is important. cobc produces a Dynamic Shared Object by default. To create executables, you need to use -x.
$ ./hello
Hello World!
OpenCOBOL also supports features for multiple source, multiple language programming, detailed in the FAQ at Does OpenCOBOL support modules?.
The directory after using the various cobc options:
-rwxrwxr-x. 1 btiffin btiffin 9730 Apr 22 00:25 hello
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 2253 Apr 22 00:26 hello.c
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 835 Apr 22 00:26 hello.c.h
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 391 Apr 22 00:26 hello.c.l.h
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 181 Apr 22 00:24 hello.cob
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 3288 Apr 22 00:24 hello.o
-rw-rw-r--. 1 btiffin btiffin 2577 Apr 22 00:26 hello.s
-rwxrwxr-x. 1 btiffin btiffin 9334 Apr 22 00:27 hello.so
cobc is the OpenCOBOL compiler. It processes source code into object, library or executable code.
See What compiler options are supported? for more information.
cobcrun is the OpenCOBOL driver program that allows the execution of programs stored in OpenCOBOL modules.
The cobc compiler, by default, produces modules (the -m option). These modules are linkable dynamic shared objects (DSO). Using GNU/Linux for example
$ cobc -x hello.cob
$ ./hello
Hello World!
$ cobc hello.cob
$ cobcrun hello
Hello World!
The cobc -x hello.cob built an executable binary called hello. The cobc hello.cob produced a DSO hello.so, and cobcrun resolves the entry point and executes the code, right from the DSO.
cobcrun is the compiler author’s preferred way to manage OpenCOBOL development. It alleviates knowing which source file needs -x while encouraging proper modular programming, a mainstay of OpenCOBOL.
cob-config is a program that can be used to find the C compiler flags and libraries required for compiling. Using GNU/Linux for example
$ cob-config
Usage: cob-config [OPTIONS]
Options:
[--prefix[=DIR]]
[--exec-prefix[=DIR]]
[--version]
[--libs]
[--cflags]
$ cob-config --libs
-L/usr/local/lib -lcob -lm -lgmp -lncurses -ldb
$ cob-config --cflags
-I/usr/local/include
You may need to use these features during mixed source language development, usually by back-ticking the command output inline with other gcc commands.
The OpenCOBOL system strives to follow standards, yet also remain a viable compiler option for the many billions of existing lines of COBOL sources, by supporting many existing extensions to the COBOL language. Many details of the compile can be controlled with command line options. Please also see What are the OpenCOBOL compile time configuration files? for more details on this finely tuned control.
$ cobc -V
cobc (OpenCOBOL) 1.1.0
Copyright (C) 2001-2008 Keisuke Nishida / Roger While
Built Oct 29 2008 16:32:02
Packaged Oct 28 2008 19:05:45 CET
$ cobc --help
Usage: cobc [options] file...
Options:
--help Display this message
--version, -V Display compiler version
-v Display the programs invoked by the compiler
-x Build an executable program
-m Build a dynamically loadable module (default)
-std=<dialect> Compile for a specific dialect :
cobol2002 Cobol 2002
cobol85 Cobol 85
ibm IBM Compatible
mvs MVS Compatible
bs2000 BS2000 Compatible
mf Micro Focus Compatible
default When not specified
See config/default.conf and config/*.conf
-free Use free source format
-fixed Use fixed source format (default)
-O, -O2, -Os Enable optimization
-g Produce debugging information in the output
-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, assemble 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 program listing into <file>
-I <directory> Add <directory> to copy/include search path
-L <directory> Add <directory> to library search path
-l <lib> Link the library <lib>
-D <define> Pass <define> to the C compiler
-conf=<file> User defined dialect configuration - See -std=
--list-reserved Display reserved words
--list-intrinsics Display intrinsic functions
--list-mnemonics Display mnemonic names
-save-temps(=<dir>) Save intermediate files (default current directory)
-MT <target> Set target file used in dependency list
-MF <file> Place dependency list into <file>
-ext <extension> Add default file extension
-W Enable ALL warnings
-Wall Enable all warnings except as noted below
-Wobsolete Warn if obsolete features are used
-Warchaic Warn if archaic features are used
-Wredefinition Warn incompatible redefinition of data items
-Wconstant Warn inconsistent constant
-Wparentheses Warn lack of parentheses around AND within OR
-Wstrict-typing Warn type mismatch strictly
-Wimplicit-define Warn implicitly defined data items
-Wcall-params Warn non 01/77 items for CALL params (NOT set with -Wall)
-Wcolumn-overflow Warn text after column 72, FIXED format (NOT set with -Wall)
-Wterminator Warn lack of scope terminator END-XXX (NOT set with -Wall)
-Wtruncate Warn possible field truncation (NOT set with -Wall)
-Wlinkage Warn dangling LINKAGE items (NOT set with -Wall)
-Wunreachable Warn unreachable statements (NOT set with -Wall)
-ftrace Generate trace code (Executed SECTION/PARAGRAPH)
-ftraceall Generate trace code (Executed SECTION/PARAGRAPH/STATEMENTS)
-fsyntax-only Syntax error checking only; don't emit any output
-fdebugging-line Enable debugging lines ('D' in indicator column)
-fsource-location Generate source location code (Turned on by -debug or -g)
-fimplicit-init Do automatic initialization of the Cobol runtime system
-fsign-ascii Numeric display sign ASCII (Default on ASCII machines)
-fsign-ebcdic Numeric display sign EBCDIC (Default on EBCDIC machines)
-fstack-check PERFORM stack checking (Turned on by -debug or -g)
-ffold-copy-lower Fold COPY subject to lower case (Default no transformation)
-ffold-copy-upper Fold COPY subject to upper case (Default no transformation)
-fnotrunc Do not truncate binary fields according to PICTURE
-ffunctions-all Allow use of intrinsic functions without FUNCTION keyword
-fmfcomment '*' or '/' in column 1 treated as comment (FIXED only)
-fnull-param Pass extra NULL terminating pointers on CALL statements
Using the std=<dialect> compiler option, OpenCOBOL can be configured to compile using specific historical COBOL compiler features and quirks.
Supported dialects include:
For details on what options and switches are used to support these dialect compiles, see the config/ directory of your OpenCOBOL installation. For Debian GNU/Linux, that will be /usr/share/open-cobol/config/ if you used APT to install an OpenCOBOL package or /usr/local/share/open-cobol/config/ after a build from the source archive.
For example: the bs2000.conf file restricts data representations to 2, 4 or 8 byte binary while mf.conf allows data representations from 1 thru 8 bytes. cobol85.conf allows debugging lines, cobol2002.conf configures the compiler to warn that this feature is obsolete.
From Roger on opencobol.org
In the following order -
CPY, CBL, COB, cpy, cbl, cob and finally with no extension.
User specified extensions (in the order as per command line) are inspected
PRIOR to the above defaults.
ie. They take precedence.
To assist in the support of the various existent COBOL compilers, OpenCOBOL reads configuration files controlling various aspects of a compile pass.
Each supported dialect will also have a .conf file in the config/ sub-directory of its installation. For Debian GNU/Linux, these will be in /usr/share/open-cobol/config/ or /usr/local/share/open-cobol/config under default package and default make conditions.
For example, the default configuration, default.conf is:
# COBOL compiler configuration -*- sh -*-
# Value: any string
name: "OpenCOBOL"
# Value: int
tab-width: 8
text-column: 72
# Value: `cobol2002', `mf', `ibm'
#
assign-clause: mf
# If yes, file names are resolved at run time using environment variables.
# For example, given ASSIGN TO "DATAFILE", the actual 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.
#
# Value: `yes', `no'
filename-mapping: yes
# Value: `yes', `no'
pretty-display: yes
# Value: `yes', `no'
auto-initialize: yes
# Value: `yes', `no'
complex-odo: no
# Value: `yes', `no'
indirect-redefines: no
# Value: signed unsigned bytes
# ------ -------- -----
# `2-4-8' 1 - 4 2
# 5 - 9 4
# 10 - 18 8
#
# `1-2-4-8' 1 - 2 1
# 3 - 4 2
# 5 - 9 4
# 10 - 18 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
# Value: `yes', `no'
binary-truncate: yes
# Value: `native', `big-endian'
binary-byteorder: big-endian
# Value: `yes', `no'
larger-redefines-ok: no
# Value: `yes', `no'
relaxed-syntax-check: no
# Perform type OSVS - If yes, the exit point of any currently executing perform
# is recognized if reached.
# Value: `yes', `no'
perform-osvs: no
# If yes, non-parameter linkage-section items remain allocated
# between invocations.
# Value: `yes', `no'
sticky-linkage: no
# If yes, allow non-matching level numbers
# Value: `yes', `no'
relax-level-hierarchy: no
# not-reserved:
# Value: Word to be taken out of the reserved words list
# (case independent)
# Dialect features
# Value: `ok', `archaic', `obsolete', `skip', `ignore', `unconformable'
author-paragraph: obsolete
memory-size-clause: obsolete
multiple-file-tape-clause: obsolete
label-records-clause: obsolete
value-of-clause: obsolete
data-records-clause: obsolete
top-level-occurs-clause: skip
synchronized-clause: ok
goto-statement-without-name: obsolete
stop-literal-statement: obsolete
debugging-line: obsolete
padding-character-clause: obsolete
next-sentence-phrase: archaic
eject-statement: skip
entry-statement: obsolete
move-noninteger-to-alphanumeric: error
odo-without-to: ok
Absolutely. Very well.
A sample makefile
# OpenCOBOL rules
COBCWARN = -W
# create an executable
%: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -x $^ -o $@
# create a dynamic module
%.so: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -m $^ -o $@
# create a linkable object
%.o: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -c $^ -o $@
# generate C code
%.c: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -C $^
# generate assembly
%.s: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -S $^
# generate intermediate suitable for cobxref
%.i: %.cob
[ -d tmps ] || mkdir tmps
cobc $(COBCWARN) --save-temps=tmps -c $^
# hack extension; create an executable; if errors, call vim in quickfix
%.q: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -x $^ 2>errors.err || vi -q
# hack extension; make binary; capture warnings, call vim quickfix
%.qw: %.cob
cobc $(COBCWARN) -x $^ 2>errors.err ; vi -q
# run ocdoc to get documentation
%.html: %.cob
./ocdoc $^ $*.rst $*.html $*.css
# run cobxref and get a cross reference listing (leaves tmps dir around)
%.lst: %.cob
[ -d tmps ] || mkdir tmps
cobc $(COBCWARN) --save-temps=tmps -c $^ -o tmps/$*.o && ~/writing/add1/tools/cobxref/cobxref tmps/$*.i
# tectonics for occurlrefresh
occurlrefresh: occurl.c occurlsym.cpy occurlrefresh.cbl
cobc -c -Wall occurl.c
cobc -x -lcurl occurlrefresh.cbl occurl.o
And now to compile a small program called program.cob, just use
$ make program # for executables
$ make program.o # for object files
$ make program.so # for shared library
$ make program.q # create an executable and call vi in quickfix mode
The last rule, occurlrefresh is an example of how a multi-part project can be supported. Simply type
$ make occurlrefresh
and make will check the timestamps for occurl.c, occurlsym.cpy and occurlrefresh.cbl and then build up the executable if any of those files have changed compared to timestamp of the binary.
See Tectonics for another word to describe building code.
Maybe. Style is a very personal developer choice. OpenCOBOL pays homage to this freedom of choice.
Here is the FIXED form header that this author uses. It includes ocdoc lines.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*><* ===========
*><*
*><* ===========
*><* :Author:
*><* :Date:
*><* :Purpose:
*><* :Tectonics: cobc
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. .
environment division.
configuration section.
input-output section.
file-control.
*> select
*> assign to
*> organization is
*> .
data division.
file section.
*>fd .
*> 01 .
working-storage section.
local-storage section.
linkage section.
screen section.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
goback.
end program .
*><*
*><* Last Update: dd-Mmm-yyyy
Fill in the program-id and end program to compile. Fill in the ocdoc title for generating documentation. See What is ocdoc? for more information on (one method of) inline documentation.
Here are some templates that can cut and pasted.
Fixed form in lowercase
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> **************************************************************
*> Author:
*> Date:
*> Purpose:
*> Tectonics: cobc
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. .
environment division.
configuration section.
input-output section.
*> file-control.
*> select
*> assign to
*> organization is
*> .
data division.
*> file section.
*> fd .
*> 01 .
working-storage section.
local-storage section.
linkage section.
screen section.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
goback.
end program .
Fixed form in UPPERCASE
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
******************************************************************
* Author:
* Date:
* Purpose:
* Tectonics: cobc
******************************************************************
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. .
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT
ASSIGN TO
ORGANIZATION IS
.
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD .
01 .
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
LOCAL-STORAGE SECTION.
LINKAGE SECTION.
SCREEN SECTION.
******************************************************************
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
GOBACK.
END PROGRAM .
The OCOBOL “sequence number” can safely be removed. It is there to ensure proper alignment in the browser.
FREE FORM can be compiled with cobc -free or use the supported compiler directive:
>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
the above line must start in column 7 unless cobc -free is used.
*> ** >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
*> *********************************************************************
*> Author:
*> Date:
*> Purpose:
*> Tectonics: cobc -free
*> *********************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. .
environment division.
configuration section.
input-output section.
file-control.
select
assign to
organization is
.
data division.
file section.
fd .
01 .
working-storage section.
local-storage section.
linkage section.
screen section.
procedure division.
goback.
end program .
These files can be downloaded from
Note
There are tricks to ensure that FIXED FORMAT source code can be compiled in a FREE FORMAT mode. That includes using free form end of line comments, no sequence numbers, free form DEBUG line directives with the >>D starting in column 5 (so the D ends up in column 7).
Absolutely. It comes down to SELECT name ASSIGN TO KEYBOARD for standard input, and SELECT name ASSIGN TO DISPLAY for standard out.
Below is a skeleton that can be used to write various filters. These programs can be used as command line pipes, or with redirections.
$ cat datafile | filter
$ filter <inputfile >outputfile
filter.cob. You’ll want to change the 01-transform paragraph to do all the processing of each record. This skeleton simply copies stdin to stdout, with a limit of 32K records so that may need to be changed as well or tests made to ensure the default LINE SEQUENTIAL mode of KEYBOARD and DISPLAY are appropriate for the task at hand.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*><* ===========
*><* filter
*><* ===========
*><* :Author: Brian Tiffin
*><* :Date: 20090207
*><* :Purpose: Standard IO filters
*><* :Tectonics: cobc -x filter.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. filter.
environment division.
configuration section.
input-output section.
file-control.
select standard-input assign to keyboard.
select standard-output assign to display.
data division.
file section.
fd standard-input.
01 stdin-record pic x(32768).
fd standard-output.
01 stdout-record pic x(32768).
working-storage section.
01 file-status pic x value space.
88 end-of-file value high-value
when set to false is low-value.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
main section.
00-main.
perform 01-open
perform 01-read
perform
until end-of-file
perform 01-transform
perform 01-write
perform 01-read
end-perform
.
00-leave.
perform 01-close
.
goback.
*> end main
support section.
01-open.
open input standard-input
open output standard-output
.
01-read.
read standard-input
at end set end-of-file to true
end-read
.
*> All changes here
01-transform.
move stdin-record to stdout-record
.
*>
01-write.
write stdout-record end-write
.
01-close.
close standard-input
close standard-output
.
end program filter.
*><*
*><* Last Update: dd-Mmm-yyyy
OpenCOBOL and COBOL in general does not directly support printers. That role is delegated to the operating system. Having said that, there are a few ways to get data to a printer.
Writing directly to standard out, as explained in Can OpenCOBOL be used to write command line stdin, stdout filters? and then simply piping to lpd should usually suffice to get text to your printer.
$ ./cobprog | lp
$ ./yearend | lp -d $PRESIDENTSPRINTER
Don’t try the above with the DISPLAY verb; use WRITE TO stdout, with stdout selected and assigned to the DISPLAY name.
Files can be routed to the printer from a running program with sequences such as
CALL "SYSTEM"
USING "lp os-specific-path-to-file"
RETURNING status
END-CALL
And then we open up the field of callable libraries for print support. Below is some template code for sending files to a local CUPS install.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian
*> Date: 10-Aug-2009
*> Purpose: CUPS quick print
*> Tectonics: cobc -lcups -x cupscob.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. cupscob.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 result usage binary-long.
01 cupsError usage binary-long.
01 msgPointer usage pointer.
01 msgBuffer pic x(1024) based.
01 msgDisplay pic x(132).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
call "cupsPrintFile"
using
"cupsQueue" & x"00"
"filename.prn" & x"00"
"OpenCOBOL CUPS interface" & x"00"
by value 0
by reference NULL
returning result
end-call
if result equals zero
call "cupsLastError" returning cupsError end-call
display "Err: " cupsError end-display
call "cupsLastErrorString" returning msgPointer end-call
set address of msgBuffer to msgPointer
string
msgBuffer delimited by x"00"
into msgDisplay
end-string
display function trim(msgDisplay) end-display
else
display "Job: " result end-display
end-if
goback.
end program cupscob.
As it turns out, the above code snippet can be used to print directly to a PDF defined cups-pdf printer. By
$ apt-get install cups cups-pdf
under Debian, you can then
call "cupsPrintFile"
using
"PDFer" & x"00"
"cupscob.cob" & x"00"
"cupscob.pdf" & x"00"
by value 0
by reference NULL
returning result
end-call
assuming PDFer is a Class or printer with a PDF member. A PDF version of the text in cupscob.cob will be placed in ~/PDF/ as cupscob.pdf.
Roger While added this wisdom:
Check if your particular distro has cups-pdf in
its repository. (eg. Using Yast with Suse).
If yes, install from there.
If no, use one of the RPM finders on the web to find
a version for your distro.
eg. www.rpmfind.com
The installation of cups-pdf should automatically set
up a dummy printer with the name "cups-pdf".
So you do not actually need to define a class.
You can print directly to "cups-pdf".
(Check defined printers with eg. "lpstat -t")
The output file location is dependent on the cups-pdf
configuration file normally located at /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf.
So, eg. on my box the location is defined thus -
Out ${HOME}/Documents/PDFs
The code with a little more documentation, in case it turns out to be useful.
call "cupsPrintFile" *> requires -lcups
using
"cups-pdf" & x"00" *> printer class
"cupscob.cob" & x"00" *> input filename
"cupscob.pdf" & x"00" *> title
by value 0 *> num_options
by reference NULL *> options struct <*
returning result
on exception
display "hint: use -lcups for cupsPrintFile" end-display
end-call
Jim kindly donated this snippet. One of his earliest efforts establishing a base of OpenCOBOL resources. prtcbl produces source code listing with results piped to a printer.
A few customizations. This version requires a change to a filename for printer control, location of copybooks, and possible changes to the system lp command line.
Stash a print setup string in the file so named. The program prompts for input, output and printer.
Jim pointed out that this was early attempts with OpenCOBOL as a tool to support better in house development, and was nice enough to let me reprint it.
OCOBOL IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. PRTCBL.
*AUTHOR. J C CURREY.
************************************************************
* PRINTS A COBOL SOURCE FILE WITH IT'S COPY BOOKS *
* *
* VERSION 001--ORIGINAL VERSION *
* 3/26/2009--J C CURREY *
* *
* 002--ADDS .CPY (CAPS) IF .cpy FAILS TO FIND *
* FILE AND EXPANDS INPUT TO 132 CHARACTERS*
* 4/09/2009--J C CURREY *
* *
* 003--ADDS NOLIST AND LIST SUPPORT (NOTE NOT *
* SUPPORTED BY OPENCOBOL COMPILER) *
* **NOLIST IN COL 7-14 TURNS OFF LISTING *
* **LIST IN COL 7-12 TURNS ON LISTING *
* 4/22/2009--J C CURREY *
* *
* 004--ADDS SUPPORT FOR /testing-set-1/copybooks *
* Copybooks are searched for first in the *
* local directory and if not found, then in *
* /testing-set-1/copybooks *
* 5/7/2009--J C CURREY *
* *
* 005--CORRECTS MISSING LINE ISSUE ON PAGE BREAKS*
* IN THE COPY FILE PRINTING SECTION. *
* 1285451--SANDY DOSS *
* 06/19/2009--JEREMY MONTOYA *
* *
* 006--USES EXTERNAL PCL CODE FILE TO INSERT PCL *
* CODE INTO PRINT FILE FOR FORMATTING. *
* 1330505--JIM CURREY *
* 12/14/2009--PETE MCTHOMPSON *
************************************************************
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
121409 SELECT FORMAT-FILE ASSIGN TO WS-NAME-FORMAT-FILE
121409 ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL.
SELECT PRINT-FILE ASSIGN TO WS-NAME-PRINT-FILE
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL.
SELECT INPUT-FILE ASSIGN TO WS-NAME-INPUT-FILE
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL
FILE STATUS IS WS-INPUT-FILE-STATUS.
SELECT COPY-FILE ASSIGN TO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL
FILE STATUS IS WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS.
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
*
FD PRINT-FILE.
121409 01 FORMAT-LINE PIC X(140).
01 PRINT-LINE.
05 OR-LINE-NUMBER PIC Z(6).
05 OR-FILLER-1 PIC XX.
05 OR-TEXT PIC X(132).
121409*
121409 FD FORMAT-FILE.
121409 01 FORMAT-RECORD PIC X(140).
*
FD INPUT-FILE.
01 INPUT-RECORD.
05 IR-BUFFER PIC X(132).
FD COPY-FILE.
01 COPY-RECORD.
05 CR-BUFFER PIC X(132).
**NOLIST
* THIS IS ANOTHER LINE
**LIST
*
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
****************************************************
* CONSTANTS, COUNTERS AND WORK AREAS *
****************************************************
01 WS-NAME-PROGRAM PIC X(12) VALUE
121409 "prtcbl 006".
01 WS-NO-PARAGRAPH PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 WS-I PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 WS-J PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 WS-K PIC S9(4) COMP.
01 WS-NAME-PRINT-FILE PIC X(64) VALUE SPACES.
01 WS-NAME-INPUT-FILE PIC X(64) VALUE SPACES.
01 WS-INPUT-FILE-STATUS PIC XX VALUE "00".
050709 01 WS-NAME-COPY-FILE PIC X(128) VALUE SPACES.
050709 01 WS-HOLD-NAME-COPY-FILE PIC X(128) VALUE SPACES.
121409 01 WS-NAME-FORMAT-FILE PIC X(128) VALUE SPACES.
01 WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS PIC XX VALUE "00".
01 WS-LINE-PRINTER-NAME PIC X(16) VALUE SPACES.
01 WS-LINE-NUMBER PIC S9(6) COMP
VALUE ZERO.
01 WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER PIC S9(4) COMP
VALUE 999.
01 WS-PAGE-NUMBER PIC S9(4) COMP
VALUE ZERO.
01 WS-PRINT-COMMAND PIC X(128).
*
01 WS-ESCAPE-CHARACTER PIC X VALUE X"1B".
*
01 WS-HEADING-LINE PIC X(132).
01 WS-CURRENT-DATE PIC X(21).
01 WS-ED4S PIC ZZZZ-.
042209 01 WS-SWITCH-PRINT PIC X VALUE SPACE.
****************************************************************
* PROCEDURE DIVISION *
****************************************************************
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
0000-MAIN SECTION.
PERFORM 1000-INITIALIZATION THRU 1990-EXIT.
PERFORM 2000-PROCESS THRU 2990-EXIT.
PERFORM 9000-END-OF-PROGRAM THRU 9990-EXIT.
STOP RUN.
****************************************************************
* INITIALIZATION *
****************************************************************
1000-INITIALIZATION.
MOVE 1000 TO WS-NO-PARAGRAPH.
DISPLAY "I) ", WS-NAME-PROGRAM, " BEGINNING AT--"
FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE.
1002-GET-INPUT-FILE.
DISPLAY "A) ENTER INPUT-FILE NAME " WITH NO ADVANCING.
ACCEPT WS-NAME-INPUT-FILE.
OPEN INPUT INPUT-FILE.
IF WS-INPUT-FILE-STATUS IS EQUAL TO 35
DISPLAY "W) INPUT FILE NOT FOUND"
GO TO 1002-GET-INPUT-FILE.
DISPLAY "A) ENTER PRINT-FILE (WORK FILE) NAME "
WITH NO ADVANCING.
ACCEPT WS-NAME-PRINT-FILE.
DISPLAY "A) ENTER PRINTER NAME " WITH NO ADVANCING.
ACCEPT WS-LINE-PRINTER-NAME.
OPEN OUTPUT PRINT-FILE.
121409 MOVE "laserjet_113D.txt" TO WS-NAME-FORMAT-FILE.
121409 OPEN INPUT FORMAT-FILE.
121409 1010-OUTPUT-PCL-CODES.
121409 READ FORMAT-FILE NEXT RECORD AT END GO TO 1020-FORMAT-EOF.
121409 MOVE FORMAT-RECORD TO FORMAT-LINE.
121409 WRITE FORMAT-LINE.
121409 GO TO 1010-OUTPUT-PCL-CODES.
121409 1020-FORMAT-EOF.
121409 CLOSE FORMAT-FILE.
1990-EXIT.
EXIT.
**************************************************************
* DETAIL SECTION *
**************************************************************
2000-PROCESS.
MOVE 2000 TO WS-NO-PARAGRAPH.
READ INPUT-FILE NEXT RECORD AT END GO TO 2990-EXIT.
ADD 1 TO WS-LINE-NUMBER.
IF WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER IS GREATER THAN 112
PERFORM 2800-HEADINGS THRU 2890-EXIT.
MOVE WS-LINE-NUMBER TO OR-LINE-NUMBER.
MOVE SPACES TO OR-FILLER-1.
MOVE INPUT-RECORD TO OR-TEXT.
042209 IF IR-BUFFER (7:6) IS EQUAL TO "**LIST"
042209 MOVE "Y" TO WS-SWITCH-PRINT.
042209 IF WS-SWITCH-PRINT IS EQUAL TO "N"
042209 THEN NEXT SENTENCE
042209 ELSE WRITE PRINT-LINE
042209 ADD 1 TO WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER.
042209 IF IR-BUFFER (7:8) IS EQUAL TO "**NOLIST"
042209 MOVE "N" TO WS-SWITCH-PRINT.
IF IR-BUFFER (7:1) IS EQUAL TO "*" GO TO 2000-PROCESS.
MOVE 1 TO WS-I.
2010-COMPARE-LOOP.
IF IR-BUFFER (WS-I:2) IS EQUAL TO "*>" GO TO 2090-ENDER.
IF IR-BUFFER (WS-I:6) IS EQUAL TO " COPY " GO TO 2020-COPY.
ADD 1 TO WS-I.
IF WS-I IS LESS THAN 73 GO TO 2010-COMPARE-LOOP.
GO TO 2000-PROCESS.
2020-COPY.
SUBTRACT 1 FROM WS-LINE-NUMBER.
ADD 6 TO WS-I.
MOVE 1 TO WS-J.
MOVE SPACES TO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE.
2022-MOVE-LOOP.
IF IR-BUFFER (WS-I:1) IS EQUAL TO SPACE
GO TO 2030-OPEN-COPYFILE.
IF IR-BUFFER (WS-I:1) IS EQUAL TO "."
MOVE ".cpy" to WS-NAME-COPY-FILE (WS-J:4)
GO TO 2030-OPEN-COPYFILE.
MOVE IR-BUFFER (WS-I:1) TO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE (WS-J:1).
ADD 1 TO WS-I, WS-J.
IF WS-I IS GREATER THAN 73
OR WS-J IS GREATER THAN 64
THEN MOVE "**PROBLEM WITH.COPY STATEMENT ABOVE**"
TO OR-TEXT
WRITE PRINT-LINE
ADD 1 TO WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER
GO TO 2000-PROCESS.
GO TO 2022-MOVE-LOOP.
2030-OPEN-COPYFILE.
OPEN INPUT COPY-FILE.
IF WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS IS NOT EQUAL TO "00"
040909 MOVE ".CPY" TO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE (WS-J:4)
040909 OPEN INPUT COPY-FILE
040909 IF WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS IS NOT EQUAL TO "00"
050709 MOVE WS-NAME-COPY-FILE TO WS-HOLD-NAME-COPY-FILE
050709 STRING "/testing-set-1/copybooks/"
050709 WS-HOLD-NAME-COPY-FILE
050709 INTO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE
* DISPLAY "D) AT.COPY FILE OPEN NAME=\", WS-NAME-COPY-FILE, "\"
050709 OPEN INPUT COPY-FILE
050709 IF WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS IS NOT EQUAL TO "00"
050709 ADD 25 TO WS-J
050709 MOVE ".cpy" TO WS-NAME-COPY-FILE (WS-J:4)
* DISPLAY "D) AT.COPY FILE OPEN NAME=\", WS-NAME-COPY-FILE, "\"
050709 OPEN INPUT COPY-FILE
050709 IF WS-COPY-FILE-STATUS IS NOT EQUAL TO "00"
050709 MOVE "***COPY FILE ABOVE NOT FOUND***" TO OR-TEXT
050709 WRITE PRINT-LINE
050709 ADD 1 TO WS-LINE-NUMBER
050709 ADD 1 TO WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER
050709 GO TO 2000-PROCESS
050709 END-IF
050709 END-IF
040909 END-IF
040909 END-IF.
2032-PRINT-LOOP.
READ COPY-FILE NEXT RECORD AT END GO TO 2039-EOF.
ADD 1 TO WS-LINE-NUMBER.
061909* MOVE WS-LINE-NUMBER TO OR-LINE-NUMBER.
061909* MOVE SPACES TO OR-FILLER-1.
061909* MOVE COPY-RECORD TO OR-TEXT.
IF WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER IS GREATER THAN 112
PERFORM 2800-HEADINGS THRU 2890-EXIT.
061909 MOVE WS-LINE-NUMBER TO OR-LINE-NUMBER.
061909 MOVE SPACES TO OR-FILLER-1.
061909 MOVE COPY-RECORD TO OR-TEXT.
042209 IF CR-BUFFER (7:6) IS EQUAL TO "**LIST"
042209 MOVE "Y" TO WS-SWITCH-PRINT.
042209 IF WS-SWITCH-PRINT IS EQUAL TO "N"
042209 THEN NEXT SENTENCE
042209 ELSE WRITE PRINT-LINE
042209 ADD 1 TO WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER.
042209 IF CR-BUFFER (7:8) IS EQUAL TO "**NOLIST"
042209 MOVE "N" TO WS-SWITCH-PRINT.
GO TO 2032-PRINT-LOOP.
2039-EOF.
CLOSE COPY-FILE.
042209 MOVE "Y" TO WS-SWITCH-PRINT.
2090-ENDER.
GO TO 2000-PROCESS.
*
* PAGE HEADINGS
*
2800-HEADINGS.
INITIALIZE PRINT-LINE.
ADD 1 TO WS-PAGE-NUMBER.
MOVE FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE TO WS-CURRENT-DATE.
MOVE WS-NAME-INPUT-FILE TO PRINT-LINE.
MOVE WS-PAGE-NUMBER TO WS-ED4S.
MOVE "PAGE" TO PRINT-LINE (66:4).
MOVE WS-ED4S TO PRINT-LINE (71:4).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (5:2) TO PRINT-LINE (80:2).
MOVE "/" TO PRINT-LINE (82:1).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (7:2) TO PRINT-LINE (83:2).
MOVE "/" TO PRINT-LINE (85:1).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (1:4) TO PRINT-LINE (86:4).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (9:2) TO PRINT-LINE (92:2).
MOVE ":" TO PRINT-LINE (94:1).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (11:2) TO PRINT-LINE (95:2).
MOVE ":" TO PRINT-LINE (97:1).
MOVE WS-CURRENT-DATE (13:2) TO PRINT-LINE (98:2).
IF WS-PAGE-NUMBER IS EQUAL TO 1
THEN WRITE PRINT-LINE
ELSE WRITE PRINT-LINE AFTER ADVANCING PAGE.
INITIALIZE PRINT-LINE.
WRITE PRINT-LINE.
MOVE 4 TO WS-PAGE-LINE-COUNTER.
2890-EXIT.
EXIT.
*
* END OF JOB
*
2990-EXIT.
EXIT.
****************************************************************
* TERMINATION *
****************************************************************
9000-END-OF-PROGRAM.
MOVE 9000 TO WS-NO-PARAGRAPH.
CLOSE INPUT-FILE.
CLOSE PRINT-FILE.
121409* STRING "lp -d " DELIMITED BY SIZE,
121409* WS-LINE-PRINTER-NAME DELIMITED BY SIZE,
121409* "-o sides=two-sided-long-edge " DELIMITED BY SIZE,
121409* "-o lpi=11 -o cpi=18 -o page-left=34 " DELIMITED BY SIZE,
121409* WS-NAME-PRINT-FILE DELIMITED BY SIZE
121409* INTO WS-PRINT-COMMAND.
STRING "lp -d " DELIMITED BY SIZE,
WS-LINE-PRINTER-NAME DELIMITED BY SIZE,
"-o raw " DELIMITED BY SIZE,
WS-NAME-PRINT-FILE DELIMITED BY SIZE
INTO WS-PRINT-COMMAND.
CALL "SYSTEM" USING WS-PRINT-COMMAND.
DISPLAY "I) " WS-NAME-PROGRAM " COMPLETED NORMALLY AT--"
FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE.
9990-EXIT.
EXIT.
Absolutely. Using the CALL "SYSTEM" service. Some care must be shown to properly detach the input output handles, and to instruct the processes to ignore hangup signals along with the “run in a background subshell” control.
CALL "SYSTEM"
USING
"nohup whatever 0</dev/null 1>mystdout 2>mystderr &"
RETURNING result
END-CALL
runs whatever in the background, detaches stdin, sends standard output to the file mystdout and standard error to mystderr.
The above example is for POSIX_ shell operating systems. As always, the commands sent through SYSTEM are VERY operating system dependent.
Absolutely. Sort of. And it’s beautiful, complete and awe inspiring.
Dimitri van Heesch’s 1.7.4 release of Doxygen, http://www.doxygen.org was used to produce http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxy/ and along with Gary’s OCic.cbl http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxyapp/ to highlight the absolutely beautiful compiler and application documentation available for OpenCOBOL now. These pages were produced with very little effort with only a few small tweaks to the Doxygen generated Doxyfile (to turn on all files, and to generate call graphs). The sample pass produces a 1400 page beauty of a reference manual in PDF generated from the Doxygen LaTex output. 2950 pages for the sample application run.
OpenCOBOL ships as a developer tarball and Doxygen was let loose on the source tree after a ./configure and make pass. When the -C output of Gary Cutler’s OCic.clb was placed into the tree, the output includes the call graphs that exercise some of the OpenCOBOL runtime library. This application level documentation is world class.
Regarding the above “sort of”. This was a near effortless use of Doxygen. OpenCOBOL was not touched and the sources have no explicit Doxygen tags. It also excludes many of the automake, libtool, bison and flex source files. Even still, beautiful. The compiler API is now an easy grok, and application level documentation (doxyapp using OCic.cbl as a sample) should satisfy the world’s most ruthless code auditor and meticulous development team lead.
See http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxy/d2/dd4/structcb__field.html for a tantalizing sample of cb_field collaboration diagram and completeness of source code coverage. See http://opencobol.add1tocobol.com/doxyapp/d4/da8/OCic_8c.html for a view of how Doxygen handles the application level documentation. All for free.
LD_RUN_PATH can be a saving grace for developers that want to build OpenCOBOL on hosted environments. LD_RUN_PATH is similar to LD_LIBRARY_PATH but builds the shared library path into cobc and then all of the binaries compiled with cobc. That means you can cherry pick the link loader paths when you build OpenCOBOL in a way that can add support for unsupported host features.
If you want a recent version of ncurses on your hosting service, but don’t have root permissions, you can build it into one of your own directories then
EXPORT LD_RUN_PATH=mylibdir
./configure ; make ; make install
to build your OpenCOBOL. All compiles with cobc will now include mylibdir during compiles, and better yet, the binaries produced will also include mylibdir in the search path at runtime.
If you don’t have RECORD_PATH in your cobc then you can simply compile with
LD_RUN_PATH=mylibdir cobc -x nextbigthing.cob
to achieve similar results.
With the CGI interface, see How do I use OpenCOBOL for CGI?, you can now build up a complete web side solution using OpenCOBOL with little worry about being stuck on link library depencencies or running scripts to setup any path variables before safely using your cgi-bin binaries.
LD_RUN_PATH is magical. It also avoids many security problems that can occur if you rely on LD_LIBRARY_PATH user environment settings. Your cobc will have your search path and not some /home/badusers trickery settings as LD_RUN_PATH searches come before LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Relying on LD_LIBRARY_PATH is deemed a Don’t do by some experts. LD_RUN_PATH is a much safer bet.
The sources for the OpenCOBOL compiler follows GNU standards whenever possible. This includes being built around the GNU build system.
From an end-user perspective, what this means is that the source code distributions follow these basic steps:
tar xvf open-cobol-1.1.tar.gz
cd open-cobol-1.1
./configure
make
make check
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
But that is just scratching the surface of the possibilities. See What are the configure options available for building OpenCOBOL? for the first steps with ./configure.
Next up, OpenCOBOL fully supports out-of-source-tree builds.
From Roger:
I mentioned in the past the preferred way of doing
a configure/build ie. Out-of-source-tree build.
eg.
We have OC 2.0 in /home/open-cobol-2.0
We want to test -
OC with BDB
OC with vbisam
OC without db (ISAM)
mkdir /home/oc20110710bdb
cd /home/oc20110710bdb
/home/open-cobol-2.0/configure --enable-debug
make
make check
cd tests
cd cobol85
# <Get newcob.val - per README>
make test
mkdir /home/oc20110710vbisam
cd /home/oc20110710vbisam
/home/open-cobol-2.0/configure --enable-debug --with-vbisam
make
make check
cd tests
cd cobol85
# <Get newcob.val - per README>
make test
mkdir /home/oc20110710nodb
cd /home/oc20110710nodb
/home/open-cobol-2.0/configure --enable-debug --without-db
make
make check
cd tests
cd cobol85
# <Get newcob.val - per README>
make test
For the last example both the OC and ANSI85 tests have been adjusted
to cater for lack of ISAM functionality.
To set your current environment to compile/execute from any of the above
(ie. without doing a "make install" from any directory), then
either "source" or execute as part of current environment
(with . ) the following files from the build directory -
tests/atconfig
tests/atlocal
(Note in that order)
So eg.
. /home/oc20110710vbisam/tests/atconfig
. /home/oc20110710vbisam/tests/atlocal
will set compiler/runtime to this environment in the current shell.
Note that both the OC tests and the ANSI85 tests do this internally
(Fairly obvious otherwise we would not be testing the right thing).
Of course, from any of the above example directories you can do
a final "make install".
By developing the OpenCOBOL system around the GNU build tools, developers receive a great many options for free.
make check can include TESTSUITEFLAGS.
The TESTSUITEFLAGS allows for options that include:
This is actually a frequently asked question, and it usually has the same answer.
OpenCOBOL uses the Curses and NCurses packages for advanced terminal features and SCREEN SECTION handling. This uses stdscr for input and output, and not the standard CONSOLE, SYSIN, SYSOUT character interface modes. One feature of the Curses handler is the concept of a secondary screen buffer, which is erased during initialization and then disappears at rundown. This can happen so fast on short display programs that it looks like nothing happens.
program-id. helloat.
DISPLAY "Hello, world" LINE 5 COLUMN 5 END-DISPLAY
goback.
will cause the Curses package to initialize a secondary buffer, display the Hello string, then immediately restore the primary buffer during goback. It will look like nothing is output when ./helloat is run. There are a few fixes for this.
The last option is discussed here.
https://blogs.oracle.com/samf/entry/smcup_rmcup_hate is a great article that discusses, and sledge-hammer fixes, the curses init screen clearing issue, leaving output on the stdout terminal, not an alternate screen.
First to find out the actual terminal capabilites, (and what control file is going to change):
$ infocmp | head -2
shows:
# Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /home/btiffin/.terminfo/x/xterm-256color
xterm-256color|xterm with 256 colors,
There is some voodoo with infocmp and tic to worry about. By default, infocmp reads local user files, but this change can also effect the entire system.
Using a super user context:
[btiffin@localhost junk]$ sudo infocmp | head -2
# Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm-256color
xterm-256color|xterm with 256 colors,
gives us the system file.
After creating a just in case copy of /usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm-256color it is time to get rid of the alternate stdscr.
$ infocmp >xterm.terminfo
$ vi xterm.terminfo
$ # get rid of smcup= and rmcup= upto and including the comma
$ tic xterm.terminfo
in my case, the temporary xterm.terminfo looked like:
...
rin=\E[%p1%dT, rmacs=\E(B, rmam=\E[?7l, rmcup=\E[?1049l,
rmir=\E[4l, rmkx=\E[?1l\E>, rmm=\E[?1034l, rmso=\E[27m,
rmul=\E[24m, rs1=\Ec, rs2=\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>, sc=\E7,
setab=\E[4%p1%dm, setaf=\E[3%p1%dm,
setb=\E[4%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m,
setf=\E[3%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m,
sgr=%?%p9%t\E(0%e\E(B%;\E[0%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p1%p3%|%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;%?%p7%t;8%;m,
sgr0=\E(B\E[m, smacs=\E(0, smam=\E[?7h, smcup=\E[?1049h,
...
and becomes:
...
rin=\E[%p1%dT, rmacs=\E(B, rmam=\E[?7l,
rmir=\E[4l, rmkx=\E[?1l\E>, rmm=\E[?1034l, rmso=\E[27m,
rmul=\E[24m, rs1=\Ec, rs2=\E[!p\E[?3;4l\E[4l\E>, sc=\E7,
setab=\E[4%p1%dm, setaf=\E[3%p1%dm,
setb=\E[4%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m,
setf=\E[3%?%p1%{1}%=%t4%e%p1%{3}%=%t6%e%p1%{4}%=%t1%e%p1%{6}%=%t3%e%p1%d%;m,
sgr=%?%p9%t\E(0%e\E(B%;\E[0%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p1%p3%|%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;%?%p7%t;8%;m,
sgr0=\E(B\E[m, smacs=\E(0, smam=\E[?7h,
...
rmcup and smcup edited out.
After the tic command completes, there is a shiny new local /home/btiffin/.terminfo/x/xterm-256color compiled terminfo file that has no alternate terminal screen capabilities.
As long as you don’t run the terminal info compiler, tic, as root, the files in /usr/share/terminfo/... will still be the originals, and a new local copy is made. tic will overwrite the system file if it can, will move on and create a local compiled file if it can’t.
The script in Sam’s blog, mentioned above, will alleviate doing this manually every time the system updates the terminfo database.
So now, code like the following that displays data on line 2, column 12 and line 3, column 13
identification division.
program-id. helloscreen.
procedure division.
display "Hello, world" at 0212 end-display
display "Goodbye, smcup/rmcup" at 0313 end-display
goback.
end program helloscreen.
and then the command below; which still blanks the screen, but now leaves output on the terminal after goback.
[btiffin@home forum]$ ./helloscreen
Hello, world
Goodbye, smcup/rmcup
[btiffin@home forum]$
and OpenCOBOL displays things using advanced terminal capabilities, but leaves the data on screen after image exit.
Never worry about smcup/rmcup hate on curses init again. Not just OpenCOBOL and curses, but vi, less, man and any other alternate screen application. For the win. This change effects old school TE TI termcap calls too.
Curses will still play havoc with screen section programs in pipes; as stdin, stdout are a little special with curses involved. This is a minor annoyance that won’t come up as often and piping screen interactive programs has always been laden in voodoo anyway.
COBOL Reserved Words
COBOL is a reserved word rich language. The OpenCOBOL compiler recognizes:
Reserved Words
514 words in OC 1.1, 136 of which are marked not yet implemented. 378 functional reserved words, as of August 2008.
Makes data available from the keyboard or operating system to named data items. OpenCOBOL supports both standard and extended ACCEPT statements.
Most extended ACCEPT statements will require an advanced terminal screen initialization, which can obscure CONSOLE input and output.
ACCEPT variable FROM CONSOLE.
ACCEPT variable FROM ENVIRONMENT "path".
ACCEPT variable FROM COMMAND LINE.
ACCEPT variable AT 0101.
ACCEPT screen-variable.
ACCEPT today FROM DATE.
ACCEPT today FROM DATE YYYYMMDD.
Defines a file’s access mode. One of DYNAMIC, RANDOM, or SEQUENTIAL.
SELECT filename
ASSIGN TO "filename.dat"
ACCESS MODE IS RANDOM
RELATIVE KEY IS keyfield.
Not yet implemented. Object COBOL feature.
Sums two or more numerics, with an eye toward financial precision and error detection.
ADD 1 TO cobol GIVING OpenCOBOL END-ADD.
ADD
a b c d f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
GIVING total-of
ON SIZE ERROR
PERFORM log-problem
NOT ON SIZE ERROR
PERFORM graph-result
END-ADD
Allows program access to memory address reference and, under controlled conditions, assignment.
SET pointer-variable TO ADDRESS OF linkage-store.
SET ADDRESS OF based-var TO ADDRESS OF working-var
Programmer control of newline output and paging.
DISPLAY "Legend: " WITH NO ADVANCING END-DISPLAY.
WRITE printrecord AFTER ADVANCING PAGE END-WRITE.
Nested PERFORM clause and can influence when loop conditional testing occurs.
PERFORM
WITH TEST AFTER
VARYING variable FROM 1 BY 1
UNTIL variable > 10
AFTER inner FROM 1 BY 1
UNTIL inner > 4
DISPLAY variable ", " inner END-DISPLAY
END-PERFORM.
Will display 55 lines of output. 1 to 11 and 1 to 5. Removing the WITH TEST AFTER clause would cause 40 lines of output. 1 to 10 and 1 to 4.
Not yet implemented feature that will influence the internal alignment of not yet implemented USAGE BIT fields.
A multipurpose reserved in context word.
INSPECT variable REPLACING ALL "123" WITH "456".
MOVE ALL QUOTES TO var.
Allocates actual working storage for a BASED element.
ALLOCATE based-var INITIALIZED RETURNING pointer-var.
* Set up for a mixed case SORT COLLATING SEQUENCE IS
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
ALPHABET name IS "AaBbCcDdEe..".
One of the OpenCOBOL data class (category) tests.
IF variable IS ALPHABETIC
DISPLAY "alphabetic" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
ALPHABETIC is defined as a data item that uses only A in the PICTURE clause. Finding examples of ALPHABETIC data use is difficult, which means this type is rarely used, favouring ALPHANUMERIC instead.
When tested, only data that are upper case A to Z and lower case a to z will return true, all others, including any digits 0 to 9 will return false.
One of the OpenCOBOL data class (category) tests.
IF variable IS ALPHABETIC-LOWER
DISPLAY "alphabetic-lower" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
One of the OpenCOBOL data class (category) tests.
DISPLAY variable "alphabetic-upper " WITH NO ADVANCING
IF variable IS ALPHABETIC-UPPER
DISPLAY "true A-Z, and nothing but A to Z" END-DISPLAY
ELSE
DISPLAY "false A-Z, something else in here" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
INITIALIZE data-record REPLACING ALPHANUMERIC BY literal-value
INITIALIZE data-record
REPLACING ALPHANUMERIC-EDITED BY identifier-1
A powerful, multiple conditional expression feature of EVALUATE.
EVALUATE variable ALSO second-test
WHEN "A" ALSO 1 THRU 5 PERFORM first-case
WHEN "A" ALSO 6 PERFORM second-case
WHEN "A" ALSO 7 THRU 9 PERFORM third-case
WHEN OTHER PERFORM invalid-case
END-EVALUATE
Obsolete and once unsupported verb that modifies the jump target for GO TO statements.
Yeah, just don’t. Unless you are writing a state machine engine, maybe. ALTER should rarely be used in COBOL applications.
Rumour is, 1.1 may support this verb, to increase support for legacy code, and NOT as homage to a good idea. But to be honest, I do look forward to seeing the first OpenCOBOL Flying Spaghetti Monster for the giggles of righteous indignation.
Reality is, 2.0 does support ALTER. NIST Test Suite passes over 9,700 tests, up from just under 9,100 with 1.1.
Defines an ALTERNATE key for ISAM data structures.
SELECT file
ASSIGN TO filename
ACCESS MODE IS RANDOM
RECORD KEY IS key-field
ALTERNATE KEY IS alt-key WITH DUPLICATES.
COBOL rules of precedence are; NOT, AND, OR.
IF field = "A" AND num = 3
DISPLAY "got 3" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
COBOL also allows abbreviated combined relational conditions.
IF NOT (a NOT > b AND c AND NOT d)
code
END-IF
is equivalent to
IF NOT (((a NOT > b) AND (a NOT > c)) AND (NOT (a NOT > d)))
code
END-IF
Allows for any value is TRUE in an EVALUATE statement.
EVALUATE TRUE ALSO TRUE
WHEN a > 3 ALSO ANY *> b can be any value **
PERFORM a-4-b-any
WHEN a = 3 ALSO b = 1
PERFORM a-3-b-1
END-EVALUATE
Not yet implemented. Will allow case insentive match of currency symbols with FUNCTION NUMVAL-C.
Allows for multiple conditional VALUES.
01 cond-1 PIC X.
88 first-truth VALUES ARE "A" "B" "C".
88 second-truth VALUES ARE "X" "Y" "Z".
Controls SORT, MERGE and RECORD data definitions.
I-O-CONTROL.
SAME RECORD AREA FOR file1, file2.
Holds the number of OS parsed command line arguments, and can act as the explicit index when retrieving ARGUMENT-VALUE data. ARGUMENT-NUMBER can be used in ACCEPT FROM and DISPLAY UPON expressions.
ACCEPT command-line-argument-count FROM ARGUMENT-NUMBER END-ACCEPT
DISPLAY 2 UPON ARGUMENT-NUMBER END-DISPLAY
ACCEPT indexed-command-line-argument FROM ARGUMENT-VALUE END-ACCEPT
See COMMAND-LINE for more information on the unparsed command invocation string.
Returns the next command line argument. This post from John on opencobol.org is an excellent idiom for parsing command line arguments without too much worry as to the order.
>>source format is free
*>*****************************************************************
*> Author: jrls (John Ellis)
*> Date: Nov-2008
*> Purpose: command line processing
*>*****************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. cmdline.
data division.
*>
working-storage section.
*>******************************************
01 argv pic x(100) value spaces.
88 recv value "-r", "--recv".
88 email value "-e", "--email".
88 delivered value "-d", "--delivered".
01 cmdstatus pic x value spaces.
88 lastcmd value "l".
01 reptinfo.
05 rept-recv pic x(30) value spaces.
05 rept-howsent pic x(10) value spaces.
*>
procedure division.
0000-start.
*>
perform until lastcmd
move low-values to argv
accept argv from argument-value
if argv > low-values
perform 0100-process-arguments
else
move "l" to cmdstatus
end-if
end-perform
display reptinfo.
stop run.
*>
0100-process-arguments.
*>
evaluate true
when recv
if rept-recv = spaces
accept rept-recv from argument-value
else
display "duplicate " argv
end-if
when email
move "email" to rept-howsent
when delivered
move "delivered" to rept-howsent
when other display "invalid switch: " argv
end-evaluate.
Example run:
./cmdline --recv "john ellis" -e -f
invalid switch: -f
john ellis email
Not yet implemented feature of the not yet implemented OPTIONS paragraph of the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
COBOL table suport.
01 CLUBTABLE.
05 MEMBER-DATA OCCURS 1 TO 6000000000 TIMES
DEPENDING ON PEOPLE
ASCENDING KEY IS HOURS-DONATED.
Assign a name to a file or other external resource.
SELECT input-file
ASSIGN TO "filename.ext"
The actual filename used is dependent on a configuration setting. Under default configuration settings, filename-mapping is set to yes.
See What are the OpenCOBOL compile time configuration files? for details.
# If yes, file names are resolved at run time using
# environment variables.
# For example, given ASSIGN TO "DATAFILE", the actual
# 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.
#
# Value: 'yes', 'no'
filename-mapping: yes
So, under GNU/Linux, bash shell
$ export DD_DATAFILE='/tmp/opencobol.dat'
$ ./myprog
the program will find the data in /tmp/opencobol.dat
$ export DD_DATAFILE='/tmp/other.dat'
$ ./myprog
this run of the same program will find the data in /tmp/other.dat
As shown in the sample .conf comments, the order of environment variable lookup proceeds through three enviroment variables before using a literal as the filename.
where DATAFILE is the name used in
ASSIGN TO name
and can be any valid COBOL identifier, or string leading to a valid operating system filename.
Controls position of ACCEPT and DISPLAY screen oriented verbs.
*> Display at line 1, column 4 <*
DISPLAY "Name:" AT 0104 END-DISPLAY
*> Accept starting at line 1, column 10 for length of field <*
ACCEPT name-var AT 0110 END-ACCEPT
Not yet implemented, but when it is, it will allow
SET screen-name ATTRIBUTE BLINK OFF
Automatic cursor flow to next field in screen section.
Alias for AUTO
LOCK MODE IS AUTOMATIC. See MANUAL and EXCLUSIVE for more LOCK options.
Alias for AUTO
Not yet implemented BIT field operation. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? CBL_AND for alternatives allowing bitwise operations.
Not yet implemented BIT field operation. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? CBL_NOT for alternatives allowing bitwise operations.
Not yet implemented BIT field operation. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? CBL_OR for alternatives allowing bitwise operations.
For example:
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110626
*> Purpose: Demonstrate alternative for B-OR
*> Tectonics: cobc -x bits.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. bits.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 s1 pic 999 usage comp-5.
01 t2 pic 999 usage comp-5.
01 len pic 9.
01 result usage binary-long.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
move 2 to s1
move 4 to t2
move 1 to len
*> CBL_OR takes source, target and length value 2 OR 4 is 6. **
call "CBL_OR" using s1 t2 by value len returning result end-call
display s1 space t2 space len space result end-display
goback.
end program bits.
giving:
$ cobc -x bits.cob
$ ./bits
002 006 1 +0000000000
For a COBOL source code solution to BIT operations, Paul Chandler was nice enough to publish BITWISE.cbl and a full listing is included at BITWISE.
Not yet implemented BIT field operation. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? CBL_XOR for alternatives allowing bitwise operations.
05 BLANK SCREEN BACKGROUND-COLOR 7 FOREGROUND-COLOR 0.
01 based-var PIC X(80) BASED.
A sample posted by [human]
OCOBOL*-----------------------------------------------------------------
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. 'MEMALL'.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES. DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
*
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
*
77 mychar pic x.
01 REC-TEST BASED.
03 REC-TEST-PART1 PIC X(5500000).
03 REC-TEST-PART2 PIC X(0100000).
03 REC-TEST-PART3 PIC X(1200000).
03 REC-TEST-PART4 PIC X(1200000).
03 REC-TEST-PART5 PIC X(1700000).
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
LINKAGE SECTION.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
declaratives.
end declaratives.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
main section.
00.
FREE ADDRESS OF REC-TEST
display 'MEMALL loaded and REC-TEST FREEd before ALLOCATE'
accept mychar
*
IF ADDRESS OF REC-TEST = NULL
display 'REC-TEST was not allocated before'
ELSE
display 'REC-TEST was allocated before'
END-IF
accept mychar
*
ALLOCATE REC-TEST
move all '9' to REC-TEST
display 'REC-TEST allocated and filled with '
REC-TEST (1:9)
end-display
accept mychar
*
IF ADDRESS OF REC-TEST = NULL
display 'REC-TEST was not allocated before'
ALLOCATE REC-TEST
display 'REC-TEST allocated again, filled with '
REC-TEST (1:9)
end-display
ELSE
display 'REC-TEST was allocated before'
END-IF
accept mychar
*
*
FREE ADDRESS OF REC-TEST
display 'REC-TEST FREEd'
accept mychar
*
stop run
*
continue.
ex. exit program.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
*--- End of program MEMALL ---------------------------------------
Ring the terminal bell during DISPLAY output. Alias for BELL
DISPLAY "Beeeeep" LINE 3 COLUMN 1 WITH BEEP END-DISPLAY.
Sets up a PERFORM loop to test the conditional before execution of the loop body. See AFTER for the alternative. BEFORE is the default.
MOVE 1 TO counter
PERFORM WITH TEST BEFORE
UNTIL counter IS GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO limiter
CALL "subprogram" USING counter RETURNING result END-CALL
MOVE result TO answers(counter)
ADD 1 TO counter END-ADD
END-PERFORM
Also used with the WRITE verb.
WRITE record-name
BEFORE ADVANCING some-number LINES
And to control how the INSPECT verb goes about its job.
INSPECT character-var TALLYING
the-count FOR ALL "tests" BEFORE "prefix"
And not currently (February 2013) supported, in the declaratives for REPORT SECTION control.
USE BEFORE REPORTING
...
Ring the terminal bell during DISPLAY output. Alias for BEEP
DISPLAY "Beeeeep" LINE 3 COLUMN 1 WITH BELL END-DISPLAY.
01 result PIC S9(8) USAGE BINARY
With OpenCOBOL’s tight integration with the C Application Binary Interface the compiler authors have built in support that guarantees a native system C long value being the same bit size between COBOL and C modules. This increases coverage of the plethora of open C library functions that can be directly used with the CALL verb. Including cases where callback functions that require long stack parameters (that can’t as easily be wrapped in thin C code layers) can now be used more effectively and safely.
Defines an 8 bit usage item.
Defines a 64 bit usage item.
32 bit native USAGE modifier. Equivalent to S9(8).
16 bit native USAGE. Equivalent to S9(5).
Not yet implemented. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer? for alternatives allowing bitwise operations.
05 BLANK SCREEN BACKGROUND-COLOR 7 FOREGROUND-COLOR 0.
Aaaaaah, my eyes!!
FD file-name
BLOCK CONTAINS 1 TO n RECORDS
As yet unsupported modifier.
A LINAGE setting.
FD mini-report
linage is 16 lines
with footing at 15
lines at top 2
lines at bottom 2.
PERFORM the-procedure
VARYING step-counter FROM 1 BY step-size
UNTIL step-counter > counter-limit
Human inscisors average about 16mm.
More to the point, the BYTE-LENGTH returns the length, in bytes, of a data item. See FUNCTION BYTE-LENGTH
The OpenCOBOL CALL verb accepts literal or identifier stored names when resolving the transfer address. The USING phrase allows argument passing and OpenCOBOL includes internal rules for the data representation of the call stack entities that depend on the COBOL PICTURE and USAGE clauses. Return values are captured with RETURNING identifier. See What STOCK CALL LIBRARY does OpenCOBOL offer?.
For more information see http://www.opencobol.org/modules/bwiki/index.php?cmd=read&page=UserManual%2F2_3#content_1_0
CALL is the verb that opens up access to the plethora of C based ABI libraries. A plethora, and the standard C library is accessible without explicit linkage as a bonus.
One item of note is C pointers. Especially those passed around as handles. When calling a C routine that returns a handle, the RETURNING identifier will receive a C pointer. To use that handle in later CALLs, the argument from COBOL should usually by passed BY VALUE. This passes the C pointer, not the address of the COBOL identifier as the default BY REFERENCE argument handling would do.
Below is a sample that allows fairly carefree use of CBL_OC_DUMP during development. ON EXCEPTION CONTINUE.
OCOBOL*>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110701
*> Purpose: Try C library formatted printing, and CALL exception
*> Tectonics: cobc -x callon.cob
*> or cobc -x callon.cob CBL_OC_DUMP.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. callon.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 result usage binary-long.
01 pie usage float-short.
01 stuff pic x(12) value 'abcdefghijkl'.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
move 3.141592654 to pie
*> Get a dump of the memory at pie, but don't stop if not linked
call "CBL_OC_DUMP" using pie 4 on exception continue end-call
*> Call C's printf, abort if not available
call static "printf" using
"float-short: %10.8f" & x"0a00"
by value pie
returning result
end-call
display pie space length of pie space result end-display
*> Get a dump of the memory used by stuff, don't stop if no link
call "CBL_OC_DUMP" using stuff 12 on exception continue end-call
*> Get a dump of the memory used by stuff, abort if not linked <*
call "CBL_OC_DUMP" using stuff 12 end-call
goback.
end program callon.
See What is CBL_OC_DUMP? for details of the subprogram.
A runtime session shows:
$ cobc -x callon.cob
$ ./callon
float-short: 3.14159274
3.1415927 4 +0000000024
libcob: Cannot find module 'CBL_OC_DUMP'
$ cobc -x callon.cob CBL_OC_DUMP.cob
$ ./callon
Offset HEX-- -- -- -5 -- -- -- -- 10 -- -- -- -- 15 -- CHARS----1----5-
000000 db 0f 49 40 ..I@............
float-short: 3.14159274
3.1415927 4 +0000000024
Offset HEX-- -- -- -5 -- -- -- -- 10 -- -- -- -- 15 -- CHARS----1----5-
000000 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6a 6b 6c abcdefghijkl....
Offset HEX-- -- -- -5 -- -- -- -- 10 -- -- -- -- 15 -- CHARS----1----5-
000000 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6a 6b 6c abcdefghijkl....
So, the first CALL to CBL_OC_DUMP doesn’t ‘fail’ as the ON EXCEPTION CONTINUE traps the condition and lets the program carry on without a dump displayed. The last CALL does abend the program with ‘Cannot find module’ when CBL_OC_DUMP is not compiled in.
Virtual cancel of a module is supported. Physical cancel support is on the development schedule.
A control clause of the as yet unsupported COMMUNICATION DIVISION.
An as yet unsupported keyword.
Invokes a subprogram, with no return of control implied. The chained program unit virtually becomes the main program within the run unit.
Passes procedure division data through WORKING-STORAGE and can be used for shell command line arguments as well, as in CALL “myprog” USING string END-CALL.
from opencobol.org by human
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 cmd-argument.
02 some-text pic x(256).
procedure division Chaining cmd-argument.
display 'You wrote:'
'>"' function trim(some-text) '"'
'from shell command line'
end-display
A multi use keyword.
Used in SPECIAL-NAMES
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20101031
*> Purpose: Try out SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS
*> Tectonics: cobc -x figurative.cob
*> Rave: OpenCOBOL is stone cold cool
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. figurative.
environment division.
configuration section.
special-names.
symbolic characters TAB is 10
LF is 11
CMA is 45.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 a-comma pic x(1) value ",".
01 lots-of-commas pic x(20).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
display
"thing" TAB "tabbed thing" LF
"and" TAB "another tabbed thing" LF
"other" CMA " things"
end-display
move a-comma to lots-of-commas
display "MOVE a-comma : " lots-of-commas end-display
move CMA to lots-of-commas
display "MOVE symbolic: " lots-of-commas end-display
goback.
end program figurative.
Output:
$ cobc -x figuratives.cob
$ ./figuratives
thing tabbed thing
and another tabbed thing
other, things
MOVE a-comma : ,
MOVE symbolic: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Used in INSPECT
INSPECT str TALLYING tal FOR CHARACTERS
Used in a File Description FD
FD file-name
BLOCK CONTAINS integer-1 TO integer-2 CHARACTERS
RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM integer-5 TO integer-6 CHARACTERS
DEPENDING ON identifier-1.
Used to create alphabets in SPECIAL-NAMES.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
CLASS octals IS '0' THRU '7'.
...
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
IF user-value IS NOT octals
DISPLAY "Sorry, not a valid octal number" END-DISPLAY
ELSE
DISPLAY user-value END-DISPLAY
END-IF
An as yet unsupported Object COBOL class identifier clause.
An as yet unsupported source code internationalization clause.
Close an open file. OpenCOBOL will implicitly close all open resources at termination of a run unit and will display a warning message stating so, and the danger of potentially unsafe termination.
CLOSE input-file
A syntactically recognized, but as yet unsupported clause of a report descriptor, RD.
An as yet unsupported data internationalization clause.
Alias for COLUMNS.
Allows definition within a program unit of a character set.
OBJECT-COMPUTER. name.
PROGRAM COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-1.
Alias for COLUMNS.
DISPLAY var-1 LINE 1 COLUMN 23 END-DISPLAY
A recognized but as yet unsupported RD clause.
A SPECIAL-NAMES clause supporting commas in numeric values versus the default period decimal point. COBOL was way ahead of the internationization curve, and this feature has caused compiler writers no little grief in its time, a challenge they rise to and deal with for the world’s benefit.
DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA
Provides access to command line arguments.
ACCEPT the-args FROM COMMAND-LINE END-ACCEPT
Flushes ALL current locks, synching file I/O buffers. OpenCOBOL supports safe transactional processing with ROLLBACK capabilities. Assuming the ISAM handler configured when building the compiler can support LOCK_
PROGRAM-ID. CBL_OC_PROGRAM IS COMMON PROGRAM.
Ensures a nested sub-program is also available to other nested sub-programs with a program unit heirarchy.
currently (February 2013) unsupported DIVISION, but see Does OpenCOBOL support Message Queues? for an alternative.
Implementors choice; OpenCOBOL is a big-endian default. With most Intel personal computers and operating systems like GNU/Linux, COMPUTATIONAL-5 will run faster.
Single precision float. Equivalent to FLOAT-SHORT.
Double precision float. Equivalent to FLOAT-LONG.
Equivalent to PACKED DECIMAL. Packed decimal is two digits per byte, always sign extended and influenced by a .conf setting binary-size COMPUTATIONAL-6 is UNSIGNED PACKED.
Equivalent to BINARY.
Native form.
Unsigned packed decimal form, see COMPUTATIONAL-3.
Native form.
Computational arithmetic.
COMPUTE circular-area = radius ** 2 * FUNCTION PI END-COMPUTE
OpenCOBOL supports the normal gamut of arithmetic expressions.
Order of precedence rules apply.
Spaces and expressions
Due to COBOL allowing dash in user names, care must be taken to properly space arithmetic expressions.
Some examples of seemingly ambiguous and potentially dangerous code
OCOBOL*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. computing.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 answer pic s9(8).
01 var pic s9(8).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
compute answer = 3*var-1 end-compute
goback.
end program computing.
That is NOT three times var minus one, OpenCOBOL will complain.
$ cobc -x computing.cob
computing.cob:18: Error: 'var-1' is not defined
whew, saved!
OCOBOL*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. computing.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 answer pic s9(8).
01 var pic s9(8).
01 var-1 pic s9(8).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
compute answer = 3*var-1 end-compute
goback.
end program computing.
With the above source, the compile will succeed.
$ cobc -x computing.cob
OpenCOBOL will (properly, according to standard) compile this as three times var-1. Not saved, if you meant 3 times var minus 1.
OpenCOBOL programmers are strongly encouraged to use full spacing inside COMPUTE statements.
OCOBOL*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. computing.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 answer pic s9(8).
01 var pic s9(8).
01 var-1 pic s9(8).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
compute
answer = 3 * var - 1
on size error
display "Problem, call the ghost busters" end-display
not on size error
display "All good, answer is trustworthy" end-display
end-compute
goback.
end program computing.
COMPUTE supports ON SIZE ERROR, NOT ON SIZE ERROR imperatives for safety, and the ROUNDED modifier for bankers.
As yet unsupported USE AFTER EXCEPTION CONDITION clause.
A SECTION of the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. Holds paragraphs for
A CALL clause that controls how arguments are passed and expected.
CALL "subprog" USING BY CONTENT alpha-var.
alpha-var will not be modifieable by subprog as a copy is passed.
See REFERENCE and VALUE for the other supported CALL argument control.
A placeholder, no operation verb.
if action-flag = "C" or "R" or "U" or "D"
continue
else
display "invalid action-code" end-display
end-if
As yet unsupported REPORT SECTION clause for setting control break data fields.
As yet unsupported REPORT SECTION clause for setting control break data fields.
The COBOL include pre-processor verb. Also see REPLACE and Does OpenCOBOL support COPY includes?.
Alias for CORRESPONDING.
Move any and all sub fields with matching names within records.
01 bin-record.
05 first-will usage binary-short.
05 second-will usage binary-long.
05 this-wont-move usage binary-long.
05 third-will usage binary-short.
01 num-record.
05 first-will pic 999.
05 second-will pic s9(9).
05 third-will pic 999.
05 this-doesnt-match pic s9(9).
move corresponding bin-record to num-record
display
first-will in num-record
second-will in num-record
third-will in num-record
end-display
Sets the count of characters set in an UNSTRING substring.
From the OpenCOBOL Programmer’s Guide’s UNSTRING entry.
UNSTRING Input-Address
DELIMITED BY "," OR "/"
INTO
Street-Address DELIMITER D1 COUNT C1
Apt-Number DELIMITER D2 COUNT C2
City DELIMITER D3 COUNT C3
State DELIMITER D4 COUNT C4
Zip-Code DELIMITER D5 COUNT C5
END-UNSTRING
SPECIAL-NAMES.
CONSOLE IS CRT
CRT STATUS is identifier-1.
CONSOLE IS CRT allows “CRT” and “CONSOLE” to be used interchangeably on DISPLAY but this is a default for newer OpenCOBOL implementations.
CRT STATUS IS establishes a PIC 9(4) field for screen ACCEPT status codes. There is also an implicit COB-CRT-STATUS register defined for all programs, that will be used if no explicit field is established.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
CURRENCY SIGN IS literal-1.
Default currency sign is the dollar sign “$”.
Tracks the line/column location of screen ACCEPT.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
CURSOR IS identifier-2.
identifier-2 is to be declared as PIC 9(4) or 9(6). If 4, the field is LLCC. With 9(6) it is LLLCCC where L is line and C is column, zero relative.
A clause that causes EXIT PERFORM to return to the top of a loop. See FOREVER for an example.
A magical DIVISION. One of COBOL’s major strength is the rules surrounding the DATA DIVISION and pictorial record definitions.
An as yet unsupported Object COBOL feature.
An ACCEPT source. 6 digit and 8 digit Gregorian dates.
identification division.
program-id. dates.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 date-2nd
03 date-yy pic 9(2).
03 date-mm pic 9(2).
03 date-dd pic 9(2).
01 date-3rd
03 date-yyyy pic 9(4).
03 date-mm pic 9(2).
03 date-dd pic 9(2).
procedure division.
accept date-2nd from date end-accept
*> Just before the 3rd millennium, programmers admitted <*
*> that 2 digit year storage was a bad idea and ambiguous <*
accept date-3rd from date yyyymmdd end-accept
display date-2nd space date-3rd end-display
goback.
end program dates.
./dates
110701 20110701
An ACCEPT source. Access the current date in Julian form. Returns yyddd and yyyyddd formats.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 2011182 (July 01)
*> Purpose: Accept from day in Julian form
*> Tectonics: cobc -x days.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. days.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 julian-2nd.
03 julian-yy pic 9(2).
03 julian-days pic 9(3).
01 julian-3rd.
03 julian-yyyy pic 9(4).
03 julian-days pic 9(3).
procedure division.
accept julian-2nd from day end-accept
*> Just before the 3rd millennium, programmers admitted <*
*> that 2 digit year storage was a bad idea and ambiguous <*
accept julian-3rd from day yyyyddd end-accept
display julian-2nd space julian-3rd end-display
goback.
end program days.
$ make days
cobc -W -x days.cob -o days
$ ./days
11182 2011182
An ACCEPT source. Single digit day of week. 1 for Monday, 7 for Sunday.
accept the-day from day-of-week
Report Writer shortcut for DETAIL. Recognized, but not yet implemented. This author found this type of shortcut very unCOBOL, until trying to layout a report, when it made a lot more practical sense in FIXED form COBOL.
A SOURCE-COMPUTER clause and DECLARATIVE phrase.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SOURCE-COMPUTER mine
WITH DEBUGGING MODE.
DEBUGGING MODE can also be toggled on with the -fdebugging-line cobc option, and will compile in ‘D’ lines.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DECLARATIVES.
decl-debug section.
USE FOR DEBUGGING ON ALL PROCEDURES
decl-paragraph.
DISPLAY "Why is this happening to me?" END-DISPLAY
END DECLARATIVES.
USE FOR DEBUGGING sets up a section that is executed when the named section is entered. Powerful. It can also name a file, and the debug section is evaluated after open, close, read, start etc. Identifiers can be also be named and the debug section will trigger when referenced (usually after).
Allows internationization for number formatting. In particular
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. 'MEMALL'.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES. DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA.
will cause OpenCOBOL to interpret numeric literals along the lines of 123,45 as one hundred twenty three and forty five one hundreths.
DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA, while world friendly, can be the cause of ambiguous parsing and care must be taken by developers that use comma to separate parameters to FUNCTIONs.
An imperative entry that can control exception handling of file operations and turn on debug entry points.
procedure division.
declaratives.
handle-errors section.
use after standard error procedure on filename-1.
handle-error.
display "Something bad happened with " filename-1 end-display.
.
helpful-debug section.
use for debugging on main-file.
help-me.
display "Just touched " main-file end-display.
.
end declaratives.
A multi-use clause used in
Allows removal of records from RELATIVE and INDEXED files.
DELETE filename-1 RECORD
INVALID KEY
DISPLAY "no delete" END-DISPLAY
NOT INVALID KEY
DISPLAY "record removed" END-DISPLAY
END-DELETE
A fairly powerful keyword used with the STRING and UNSTRING verbs. Accepts literals and the BY SIZE modifier.
STRING null-terminated
DELIMITED BY LOW-VALUE
INTO no-zero
END-STRING
Tracks which delimiter was used for a substring in an UNSTRING operation.
From Gary’s OCic.cbl
UNSTRING Expand-Code-Rec
DELIMITED BY ". " OR " "
INTO SPI-Current-Token
DELIMITER IN Delim
WITH POINTER Src-Ptr
END-UNSTRING
Sets a control identifier for variable OCCURS table definitions.
01 TABLE-DATA.
05 TABLE-ELEMENTS
OCCURS 1 TO 100 TIMES DEPENDING ON crowd-size
INDEXED BY cursor-var.
10 field-1 PIC X.
Controls a descending sort and/or retrieval order, with
Currently unsupported data descriptor. Part of VALIDATE.
A recognized but currently unsupported report descriptor detail line control clause.
An unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION control verb.
A SELECT devicename phrase.
ASSIGN TO DISK USING dataname
Alternative spelling of DISC is allowed.
A general purpose output verb.
DISPLAY "First value: " a-variable " and another string" END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY "1" 23 "4" END-DISPLAY
The setting of environment variables does not influence the owning process shell.
DISPLAY "ENVNAME" UPON ENVIRONMENT-NAME END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY "COBOL value" UPON ENVIRONMENT-VALUE
ON EXCEPTION stop run
NOT ON EXCEPTION continue
END-DISPLAY
CALL "SYSTEM" USING "echo $ENVNAME"
gives:
$ ENVNAME="parent shell value"
$ ./disps
COBOL value
$ echo $ENVNAME
parent shell value
Highly precise arthimetic. Supports various forms:
For example:
DIVIDE dividend BY divisor GIVING answer ROUNDED REMAINDER r
ON SIZE ERROR
PERFORM log-division-error
SET division-error TO TRUE
NOT ON SIZE ERROR
SET division-error TO FALSE
END-DIVIDE
The 20xx draft standard requires conforming implementations to use 1,000 digits of precision for intermediate results. There will be no rounding errors when properly calculating financials in a COBOL program.
Ahh, sub-divisions. I think my favourite is the DATA DIVISION. It gives COBOL a distinctive and delicious flavour in a picturesque codescape.
Divisions must be specified in the order below within each source program unit.
A handy mnemonic may be “I Enter Data Properly”.
OpenCOBOL is flexible enough to compile files with only a PROCEDURE DIVISION, and even then it really only needs a PROGRAM-ID. See What is the shortest OpenCOBOL program? for an example.
Allows decrement of an index control or pointer variable.
SET ind-1 DOWN BY 2
Also used for SCREEN SECTION scroll control.
SCROLL DOWN 5 LINES
Allows duplicate keys in indexed files.
SELECT filename
ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS altkey WITH DUPLICATES
Also for SORT control.
SORT filename ON DESCENDING KEY keyfield
WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER
USING sort-in GIVING sort-out.
A file access mode allowing runtime control over SEQUENTIAL and RANDOM access for INDEXED and RELATIVE ORGANIZATION.
SELECT filename
ORGANIZATION IS RELATIVE
ACCESS MODE IS DYNAMIC
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code.
A character encoding common to mainframe systems, therefore COBOL, therefore OpenCOBOL. Different than ASCII and OpenCOBOL supports both through efficient mappings. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBCDIC for more info.
ASCII to EBCDIC conversion the OpenCOBOL way
SPECIAL-NAMES.
ALPHABET ALPHA IS NATIVE.
ALPHABET BETA IS EBCDIC.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
INSPECT variable CONVERTING ALPHA TO BETA
An unsupported shortform for USE AFTER EXCEPTION CONDITION
An unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION word.
Alternate conditional branch point.
IF AGE IS ZERO
DISPLAY "Cigar time" END-DISPLAY
ELSE
DISPLAY "What is it with kids anyway?" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
For multi branch conditionals, see EVALUATE.
An unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION word.
An unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION control verb.
Ends things. Programs, declaratives, functions.
Explicit terminator for ACCEPT.
Explicit terminator for ADD.
Explicit terminator for CALL.
Explicit terminator for COMPUTE.
Explicit terminator for DELETE.
Explicit terminator for DISPLAY.
Explicit terminator for DIVIDE.
Explicit terminator for EVALUATE.
Explicit terminator for IF.
Explicit terminator for MULTIPLY.
A LINAGE phrase used by WRITE controlling end of page imperative clause.
Explicit terminator for PERFORM.
Explicit terminator for READ.
Explicit terminator for RECEIVE.
Explicit terminator for RETURN.
Explicit terminator for REWRITE.
Explicit terminator for SEARCH.
Explicit terminator for START.
Explicit terminator for STRING.
Explicit terminator for SUBTRACT.
Explicit terminator for UNSTRING.
Explicit terminator for WRITE.
Always for CALL entry points without being fully specified sub-programs. Great for defining callbacks required by many GUI frameworks.
See Does OpenCOBOL support the GIMP ToolKit, GTK+? for an example.
An as yet unsupported clause.
Divisional name. And allows access to operating system environment variables. OpenCOBOL supports
within the ENVIROMENT DIVISION.
Also a context sensitive keyword for access to the process environment variables.
Provides access to the running process environment variables.
Provides access to the running process environment variables.
An unsupported shortform for USE AFTER EXCEPTION OBJECT
ERASE to End Of Line.
LINAGE clause shortform for END-OF-PAGE.
ERASE to End Of Screen.
Conditional expression to compare two data items for equality.
Conditional expression to compare two data items for equality.
A screen section data attribute clause that can control which portions of the screen are cleared during DISPLAY, and ACCEPT.
01 form-record.
02 first-field PIC xxx
USING identifier-1
ERASE EOL.
A DECLARATIVES clause that can control error handling.
USE AFTER STANDARD ERROR PROCEDURE ON filename-1
Program return control.
STOP RUN WITH ERROR STATUS stat-var.
Programmer access to escape key value during ACCEPT.
ACCEPT identifier FROM ESCAPE KEY END-ACCEPT
Data type is 9(4).
Unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION control.
A very powerful and concise selection construct.
EVALUATE a ALSO b ALSO TRUE
WHEN 1 ALSO 1 THRU 9 ALSO c EQUAL 1 PERFORM all-life
WHEN 2 ALSO 1 THRU 9 ALSO c EQUAL 2 PERFORM life
WHEN 3 THRU 9 ALSO 1 ALSO c EQUAL 9 PERFORM disability
WHEN OTHER PERFORM invalid
END-EVALUATE
Allow detection of CALL problem.
CALL "CBL_OC_DUMP" ON EXCEPTION CONTINUE END-CALL
Unsupport object COBOL data item reference.
Mode control for file locks.
OpenCOBOL supports
Controls flow of the program. EXIT PERFORM CYCLE causes an inline perform to return control to the VARYING, UNTIL or TIMES clause, testing the conditional to see if another cycle is required. EXIT PERFORM without the CYCLE option causes flow to continue passed the end of the current PERFORM loop.
Unsupported COMMUNICATION SECTION control.
Open a resource in an append mode.
Clause to specify external data item, file connection and program unit.
77 shared-var PIC S9(4) IS EXTERNAL AS 'shared_var'.
An unsupported object COBOL keyword.
Logical false and conditional set condition.
01 record-1 pic 9.
88 conditional-1 values 1,2,3 when set to false is 0.
set conditional-1 to true
display record-1 end-display
set conditional-1 to false
display record-1 end-display
if conditional-1
display "BAD" end-display
end-if
Runs as:
$ ./conditionals
1
0
Also used in EVALUATE, inverting the normal sense of WHEN
evaluate false
when 1 equal 1
display "Not displayed, as 1 equal 1 is true" end-display
when 1 equal 2
display "This displays because 1 equal 2 is false" end-display
when other
display "the truest case, nothing is false" end-display
end-evaluate
The record side of the COBOL file system. The File Descriptor. COBOL provides lots of control over file access. FD is part of that engine.
Sort files use SD
Some FD phrases are old, and their uses have been overtaken by features of modern operating systems.
Others are pretty cool. LINAGE is one example. FD supports a mini report writer feature. Control over lines per page, heaVer, footer and a line counter, LINAGE IS, that is implicitly maintained by OpenCOBOL during file writes. These files are usually reports, but they don’t have to be, LINAGE can be used for a simple step counter when you’d like progress displays of file updates.
Other recognized file descriptions include:
FD filename-sample
RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM 1 TO 32768 CHARACTERS
DEPENDING ON record-size-sample.
FILE is another multi use COBOL word.
The FILE section holds file description paragraphs and buffer layouts.
data division.
FILE section.
fd cobol-file-selector.
01 cobol-io-buffer pic x(132).
Some programmers don’t like seeing COBOL code that does not verify and test FILE STATUS, so you should. See ISAM for the numeric codes supported.
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select optional data-file assign to file-name
organization is line sequential
FILE STATUS is data-file-status.
select mini-report assign to "mini-report".
Exception handling with declaratives can be powerful, but some programmers find the out of band nature of where the source code that caused a problem compared to where the error handler is, distasteful.
procedure division.
declaratives.
error-handling section.
USE AFTER EXCEPTION FILE filename-maybe.
error-handler.
display "Exception on filename" end-display
.
end declaratives.
Support for USE AFTER EXCEPTION FILE is a work in progress. Using DECLARATIVES forces use of section names in the PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DELETE FILE file-selector-1 file-selector-2
DELETE FILE is supported in OpenCOBOL 2.0.
Files. The paragraph in the INPUT-OUTPUT section, in the ENVIRONMENT division. It’s verbose, a little voodooey, and worth it.
environment division.
input-output section.
FILE-CONTROL.
select optional data-file assign to file-name
organization is line sequential
file status is data-file-status.
select mini-report assign to "mini-report".
File naming clause. Assigned name may be device, FD clause specifies value of the file identifier.
VALUE OF FILE-ID IS file-ids in summary-array
more specifically
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select cobol-file-selector
assign to disk
organization indexed
access mode dynamic
record key fd-key-field
file status file-status-field.
data division.
file section.
fd cobol-file-selector label record standard
VALUE OF FILE-ID is "actual-filename.dat".
An alternative, and likely more common, method is to set the actual filename (or the enviroment variable that references the actual filename) in the ASSIGN clause. OpenCOBOL has a configuration setting to control how the actual filenames are mapped, see ASSIGN. VALUE OF FILE-ID is not ISO standard COBOL.
Data division clause, for unnamed data allocations; filler, if you will.
01 the-record.
05 first-field pic x(10).
05 filler pic x(35) value "this space intentionally left blank".
04 third-field pic x(10).
FILLER is an optional word, and this code snippet is equivalent.
01 the-record.
05 first-field pic x(10).
05 pic x(35) value "this space intentionally left blank".
05 third-field pic x(10).
Personal preference of this author is to explicitly type FILLER.
Final. A recognized but currently not supported Report Writer feature.
First. A recognized but currently not supported Report Writer feature.
OpenCOBOL recognizes but does not yet support FLOAT-EXTENDED and will abend a compile.
OpenCOBOL supports floating point long.
identification division.
program-id. threes.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 fshort usage float-short.
01 flong usage float-long.
01 fpic pic 9v9(35).
procedure division.
compute fshort = 1 / 3 end-compute
display "as short " fshort end-display
compute flong = 1 / 3 end-compute
display "as long " flong end-display
compute fpic = 1 / 6 end-compute
display "as pic " fpic end-display
compute fpic rounded = 1 / 6 end-compute
display "rounded " fpic end-display
goback.
end program threes.
displays:
$ ./threes
as short 0.333333343267440796
as long 0.333333333333333315
as pic 0.16666666666666666666666666666666666
rounded 0.16666666666666666666666666666666667
OpenCOBOL supports short floating point.
A well supported LINAGE clause.
Recognized but unsupported Report Writer clause.
Screen section foreground color control. See What are the OpenCOBOL SCREEN SECTION colour values?
Provides for infinite loops. Use EXIT PERFORM or EXIT PERFORM CYCLE to control program flow.
identification division.
program-id. foreverloop.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 cobol pic 9 value 0.
01 c pic 9 value 1.
01 fortran pic 9 value 2.
procedure division.
perform forever
add 1 to cobol
display "cobol at " cobol end-display
if cobol greater than fortran
exit perform
end-if
if cobol greater than c
exit perform cycle
end-if
display "cobol still creeping up on c" end-display
end-perform
display "cobol surpassed c and fortran" end-display
goback.
end program foreverloop.
Which produces:
$ cobc -free -x foreverloop.cob
$ ./foreverloop
cobol at 1
cobol still creeping up on c
cobol at 2
cobol at 3
cobol surpassed c and fortran
I asked on opencobol.org for some input, and an interesting conversation ensued. I’ve included the forum thread archive, nearly in its entirety, to give a sense of various programmer styles and group thought processing. See Performing FOREVER?.
Properly cleans up ALLOCATE alloted memory, and source format directive.
>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
01 var PIC X(1024) BASED.
ALLOCATE var
CALL "buffer-thing" USING BY REFERENCE var END-CALL
MOVE var TO working-store
FREE var
ACCEPT var FROM ENVIRONMENT "path"
ON EXCEPTION
DISPLAY "No path" END-DISPLAY
NOT ON EXCEPTION
DISPLAY var END-DISPLAY
END-ACCEPT
A screen section screen item control operator, requesting the normal terminator be ignored until the field is completely full or completely empty.
Allows use of the many OpenCOBOL supported intrinsic functions.
DISPLAY FUNCTION TRIM(" trim off leading spaces" LEADING) END-DISPLAY.
See Does OpenCOBOL implement any Intrinsic FUNCTIONs? for details.
Not yet implemented, but it will allow for user defined FUNCTION.
Not yet implemented beyond simple parsing REPORT writer feature.
Unsupported.
Destination control for computations, and return value clause.
ADD 1 TO cobol GIVING OpenCOBOL.
A global name is accessible to all contained programs.
GO TO is your friend. Edsger was wrong. Transfer control to a named paragraph or section. See ALTER for details of monster goto power.
A return. This will work correctly for all cases. A return to the operating system or a return to a called program.
GOBACK.
COBOL conditional expression, IF A GREATER THAN B, See LESS
Recognized but unsupported Report Writer clauses.
An unsupported BIT clause.
Recognized but unsupported Report Writer clauses.
A figurative ALPHABETIC constant, being the highest character value in the COLLATING sequence. It’s invalid to MOVE HIGH-VALUE to a NUMERIC field.
Plural of HIGH-VALUE.
Screen control for field intensity.
An OPEN mode allowing for both read and write.
A paragraph in the INPUT-OUTPUT section, allowing sharing memory areas for different files.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
I-O-CONTROL.
SAME RECORD AREA FOR filename-1 filename-2.
Shortform for IDENTIFICATION.
The initial division for OpenCOBOL programs.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. sample.
Many historical paragraphs from the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION have been deemed obsolete. OpenCOBOL will treat these as comment paragraphs. Including
Conditional branching. In COBOL, conditionals are quite powerful and there are many conditional expressions allowed with concise shortcuts.
IF A = 1 OR 2
MOVE 1 TO B
END-IF
READ filename-1 INTO identifer-1 IGNORING LOCK END-READ
Unsupported Object COBOL expression.
A data structure reference and name conflict resolution qualifier.
MOVE "abc" TO field IN the-record IN the-structure
Synonym for OF
01 cursor-var USAGE INDEX.
SET cursor-var UP BY 1.
An ISAM file organization.
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select optional indexing
assign to "indexing.dat"
organization is indexed
access mode is dynamic
record key is keyfield of indexing-record
alternate record key is splitkey of indexing-record
with duplicates
.
Sets an indexing control identifier for OCCURS data arrays.
01 TABLE-DATA.
05 TABLE-ELEMENTS
OCCURS 1 TO 100 TIMES DEPENDING ON crowd-size
INDEXED BY cursor-var.
10 field-1 PIC X.
GROUP INDICATE is an as yet unsupported REPORT SECTION RD clause that specifies that printable item is ouput only on the first occurrence of its report group for that INITIATE, control break, or page advance.
An unsupported Object COBOL clause.
A modifier for the PROGRAM-ID clause, that causes the entire DATA DIVISION to be set to an initial state each time the subprogram is executed by CALL.
ocobol >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20111226
*> Purpose: Small sample of INITIAL procedure division clause
*> Tectonics: cobc -x -w -g -debug initialclause.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. initialclause.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
procedure division.
call "with-initial" end-call
call "without-initial" end-call
call "with-initial" end-call
call "without-initial" end-call
call "without-initial" end-call
goback.
end program initialclause.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
identification division.
program-id. with-initial is initial.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 the-value pic 99 value 42.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
procedure division.
display "Inside with-initial with : " the-value end-display
multiply the-value by 2 giving the-value
on size error
display "size overflow" end-display
end-multiply
goback.
end program with-initial.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
identification division.
program-id. without-initial.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 the-value pic 99 value 42.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
procedure division.
display "Inside without-initial with: " the-value end-display
multiply the-value by 2 giving the-value
on size error
display "size overflow" end-display
end-multiply
goback.
end program without-initial.
Gives:
[btiffin@home cobol]$ ./initialclause
Inside with-initial with : 42
Inside without-initial with: 42
Inside with-initial with : 42
Inside without-initial with: 84
size overflow
Inside without-initial with: 84
size overflow
INITIAL sets the-value to 42 upon each and every entry, without-initial multiplies through 42, 84, 168 (or would have).
A sample of the INITIALIZE verb posted to opencobol.org by human
OCOBOL*-----------------------------------------------------------------
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. 'INITTEST'.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES. DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
DATA DIVISION.
*
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
*
77 mychar pic x.
77 mynumeric pic 9.
01 REC-TEST BASED.
03 REC-TEST-PART1 PIC X(10) value all '9'.
03 REC-TEST-PART2 PIC X(10) value all 'A'.
01 fillertest.
03 fillertest-1 PIC 9(10) value 2222222222.
03 filler PIC X value '|'.
03 fillertest-2 PIC X(10) value all 'A'.
03 filler PIC 9(03) value 111.
03 filler PIC X value '.'.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
LINKAGE SECTION.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
Main section.
00.
*
display 'fillertest '
'on start:'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize:'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest replacing numeric by 9
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize replacing numeric by 9:'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest replacing alphanumeric by 'X'
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize replacing alphanumeric by "X":'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest replacing alphanumeric by all 'X'
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize replacing alphanumeric by all "X":'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest with filler
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize with filler:'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize fillertest all to value
display 'fillertest '
'after initialize all to value:'
end-display
display fillertest
end-display
accept mychar
*
ALLOCATE REC-TEST
display 'REC-TEST after allocating:'
end-display
display REC-TEST
end-display
accept mychar
*
initialize REC-TEST all to value
display 'REC-TEST after initalize all to value:'
end-display
display REC-TEST
end-display
accept mychar
*
stop run
*
continue.
ex. exit program.
*-----------------------------------------------------------------
*--- End of program INITTEST -------------------------------------
Outputs:
fillertest on start:
2222222222|AAAAAAAAAA111.
fillertest after initialize:
0000000000| 111.
fillertest after initialize replacing numeric by 9:
0000000009| 111.
fillertest after initialize replacing alphanumeric by "X":
0000000009|X 111.
fillertest after initialize replacing alphanumeric by all "X":
0000000009|XXXXXXXXXX111.
fillertest after initialize with filler:
0000000000 000
fillertest after initialize all to value:
2222222222|AAAAAAAAAA111.
REC-TEST after allocating:
REC-TEST after initalize all to value:
9999999999AAAAAAAAAA
A modifier for the ALLOCATE verb, filling the target with a default value.
77 based-var PIC X(9) BASED VALUE "ALLOCATED".
77 pointer-var USAGE POINTER.
ALLOCATE based-var
DISPLAY ":" based-var ":" END-DISPLAY
FREE based-var
ALLOCATE based-var INITIALIZED RETURNING pointer-var
DISPLAY ":" based-var ":" END-DISPLAY
displays:
: :
:ALLOCATED:
Initialize internal storage for named REPORT SECTION entries.
Not currently (February 2013) supported.
A mode of the OPEN verb for file access.
OPEN INPUT file
A SORT clause allowing programmer controlled input read passes where sortable records are passed to the sort algorithm using RELEASE.
procedure division.
sort sort-work
on descending key work-rec
collating sequence is mixed
input procedure is sort-transform
output procedure is output-uppercase.
display sort-return end-display.
goback.
A section in the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION of a COBOL source file containing FILE and I-O control paragraphs.
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select htmlfile
assign to filename
organization is record sequential.
OpenCOBOL supports
paragraphs within the INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
Provides very powerful parsing and replacement to COBOL and OpenCOBOL supports the full gamet of options.
ocobol identification division.
program-id. inspecting.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 ORIGINAL pic XXXX/XX/XXBXX/XX/XXXXXXX/XX.
01 DATEREC pic XXXX/XX/XXBXX/XX/XXXXXXX/XX.
procedure division.
move function when-compiled to DATEREC ORIGINAL
INSPECT DATEREC REPLACING ALL "/" BY ":" AFTER INITIAL SPACE
display
"Intrinsic function WHEN-COMPILED " ORIGINAL
end-display
display
" after INSPECT REPLACING " DATEREC
end-display
goback.
end program inspecting.
Example output:
Intrinsic function WHEN-COMPILED 2010/03/25 23/05/0900-04/00
after INSPECT REPLACING 2010/03/25 23:05:0900-04:00
Unsupported.
An unsupported Object COBOL clause in the IDENTIFICATION division.
Used in REPOSITORY to allow the optional use of “FUNCTION” keyword.
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
The source unit will now allow for program lines such as
move trim(" abc") to dest
move function trim(" abc") to dest
to compile the same code.
Key exception imperative phrase.
READ filename-1
INVALID KEY
DISPLAY "Bad key"
NOT INVALID KEY
DISPLAY "Good read"
END-READ
Unsupported Object COBOL method call.
Readability word. A IS LESS THAN B is equivalent to A LESS B.
Alias for JUSTIFIED.
Tweaks storage rules in wierd JUST ways, lessening the voodoo behind MOVE instructions, he said, sarcastically.
77 str1 pic x(40) justified right.
Multi use, always means key:
- RELATIVE KEY IS
- ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS
- NOT INVALID KEY
- SORT filename ON DESCENDING KEY keyfield
- START indexing KEY IS LESS THAN keyfield
A special value for Standard Input
file-control.
select cgi-in
assign to keyboard.
A record label. As with most record labels, falling into disuse.
Used in START to prepare a read of the last record. A recognized but unsupported Report Writer clause.
START filename-1 LAST
INVALID KEY
MOVE ZERO TO record-count
>>D DISPLAY "No last record for " filename-1 END-DISPLAY
END-START
A reserved but unsupported category group. See Setting Locale. OpenCOBOL is ‘locale’ aware, but it is currently more external than in COBOL source. For now, it is safest to assume LC_ALL=C, but this can be configured differently when OpenCOBOL is built.
A reserved but unsupported category name. Will be used with SET.
A reserved but unsupported Locale category name. Will be used with SET.
A reserved but unsupported category name. See Setting Locale. OpenCOBOL is ‘locale’ aware, but it is currently more external than in COBOL source.
OpenCOBOL 2.0 extends locale support to the compiler messages.
$ export LC_MESSAGES=es_ES
$ cobc -x fdfgffd.cob
cobc: fdfgffd.cob: No existe el fichero o el directorio
A reserved but unsupported Locale category name. Will be used with SET.
A reserved but unsupported Locale category name. Will be used with SET.
A reserved but unsupported Locale category name. Will be used with SET.
Multipurpose.
DISPLAY FUNCTION TRIM(var-1 LEADING) END-DISPLAY
INSPECT FUNCTION REVERSE(TEST-CASE)
TALLYING B-COUNT
FOR LEADING ' '.
DISPLAY B-COUNT.
INSPECT X REPLACING LEADING ZEROS BY SPACES.
as well as use in the COBOL preprocessor:
COPY "copy.inc"
REPLACING LEADING ==TEST== BY ==FIRST==
LEADING ==NORM== BY ==SECOND==.
SYNCHRONIZED control.
A ‘cell-count’ length. Not always the same as BYTE-LENGTH.
A comparison operation.
IF requested LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO balance
PERFORM transfer
ELSE
PERFORM reject
END-IF
Recognized but unsupported Report Writer clause.
Recognized but unsupported Report Writer clause.
LINAGE is a SPECIAL-REGISTER supported by OpenCOBOL. A counter is maintained for file WRITE and can be used for pageing and other control.
COBOL *****************************************************************
* Example of LINAGE File Descriptor
* Author: Brian Tiffin
* Date: 10-July-2008
* Tectonics: $ cocb -x linage.cob
* $ ./linage <filename ["linage.cob"]>
* $ cat -n mini-report
*****************************************************************
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. linage-demo.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
select optional data-file assign to file-name
organization is line sequential
file status is data-file-status.
select mini-report assign to "mini-report".
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD data-file.
01 data-record.
88 endofdata value high-values.
02 data-line pic x(80).
FD mini-report
linage is 16 lines
with footing at 15
lines at top 2
lines at bottom 2.
01 report-line pic x(80).
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 command-arguments pic x(1024).
01 file-name pic x(160).
01 data-file-status pic 99.
01 lc pic 99.
01 report-line-blank.
02 filler pic x(18) value all "*".
02 filler pic x(05) value spaces.
02 filler pic x(34)
VALUE "THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK".
02 filler pic x(05) value spaces.
02 filler pic x(18) value all "*".
01 report-line-data.
02 body-tag pic 9(6).
02 line-3 pic x(74).
01 report-line-header.
02 filler pic x(6) VALUE "PAGE: ".
02 page-no pic 9999.
02 filler pic x(24).
02 filler pic x(5) VALUE " LC: ".
02 header-tag pic 9(6).
02 filler pic x(23).
02 filler pic x(6) VALUE "DATE: ".
02 page-date pic x(6).
01 page-count pic 9999.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
accept command-arguments from command-line end-accept.
string
command-arguments delimited by space
into file-name
end-string.
if file-name equal spaces
move "linage.cob" to file-name
end-if.
open input data-file.
read data-file
at end
display
"File: " function trim(file-name) " open error"
end-display
go to early-exit
end-read.
open output mini-report.
write report-line
from report-line-blank
end-write.
move 1 to page-count.
accept page-date from date end-accept.
move page-count to page-no.
write report-line
from report-line-header
after advancing page
end-write.
perform readwrite-loop until endofdata.
display
"Normal termination, file name: "
function trim(file-name)
" ending status: "
data-file-status
end-display.
close mini-report.
* Goto considered harmful? Bah! :)
early-exit.
close data-file.
exit program.
stop run.
****************************************************************
readwrite-loop.
move data-record to report-line-data
move linage-counter to body-tag
write report-line from report-line-data
end-of-page
add 1 to page-count end-add
move page-count to page-no
move linage-counter to header-tag
write report-line from report-line-header
after advancing page
end-write
end-write
read data-file
at end set endofdata to true
end-read
.
*****************************************************************
* Commentary
* LINAGE is set at a 20 line logical page
* 16 body lines
* 2 top lines
* A footer line at 15 (inside the body count)
* 2 bottom lines
* Build with:
* $ cobc -x -Wall -Wtruncate linage.cob
* Evaluate with:
* $ ./linage
* This will read in linage.cob and produce a useless mini-report
* $ cat -n mini-report
*****************************************************************
END PROGRAM linage-demo.
Using
$ ./linage except.cob
Produces a mini-report of:
****************** THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ******************
PAGE: 0001 LC: 000000 DATE: 090206
000001 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000002 PROGRAM-ID. MINIPROG.
000003 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000004 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000005 SOURCE-COMPUTER. LINUX.
000006 OBJECT-COMPUTER. LINUX.
000007 SPECIAL-NAMES.
000008 INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
000009 FILE-CONTROL.
000010 SELECT PRINTFILE ASSIGN TO "XXRXWXX"
000011 FILE STATUS RXWSTAT.
000012 DATA DIVISION.
000013 FILE SECTION.
000014 FD PRINTFILE.
PAGE: 0002 LC: 000015 DATE: 090206
000001 01 PRINTREC PIC X(132).
000002 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
000003 01 RXWSTAT PIC XX.
000004 01 str pic x(4).
000005 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000006 A00-MAIN SECTION.
000007 001-MAIN-PROCEDURE.
000008 OPEN INPUT PRINTFILE.
000009 DISPLAY "File Status: " RXWSTAT.
000010 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-FILE: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-FILE.
000011 DISPLAY "Return Length: "
000012 FUNCTION LENGTH (FUNCTION EXCEPTION-FILE).
000013 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS.
000014 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATEMENT.
PAGE: 0003 LC: 000015 DATE: 090206
000001 STRING "TOOLONG" DELIMITED SIZE INTO RXWSTAT.
000002 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS.
000003 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATEMENT.
000004 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-LOCATION: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION.
000005 STOP RUN.
See except.cob under the FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS entry.
An internal OpenCOBOL noun, or Special Register. Value is readonly and is maintained during WRITEs to files that have a LINAGE clause. Useful for quick reports and logical page layouts.
LINE SEQUENTIAL files. Screen section line control.
Special register for the unsupported Report Writer.
Screen section line control, screen occurs control and area scrolling.
A SECTION in the DATA DIVISION. Used for call frame data handling when the current run unit may not be in charge of the location of working storage. Defaults to uninitialized references which must be set with USING in a CALL or explicitly with SET ADDRESS. References without initialization will cause an addressing segfault.
A SECTION in the DATA DIVISION. Data defined in local storage will be local to the running module and re-entrant within subprogram call trees.
Unsupported in OpenCOBOL 1.1pre-rel. Support added in 2.0
A SPECIAL-NAMES entry giving OpenCOBOL an international flair.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
LOCALE spanish IS 'ES_es'.
A figurative ALPHABETIC constant, being the lowest character value in the COLLATING sequence.
MOVE LOW-VALUE TO alphanumeric-1.
IF alphabetic-1 EQUALS LOW-VALUE
DISPLAY "Failed validation" END-DISPLAY
END-IF.
It’s invalid to MOVE LOW-VALUE to a numeric field.
A screen attribute for DISPLAY and SCREEN SECTION fields.
SCREEN SECTION.
01 example.
05 FILLER
LINE 1 COLUMN 10
VALUE IS "Example:"
LOWLIGHT.
Will display the Example: legend in a dimmed video if supported with the current terminal settings.
LOCK MODE IS MANUAL WITH LOCK ON MULTIPLE RECORDS. See AUTOMATIC and EXCLUSIVE for more LOCK options.
An OBJECT-COMPUTER clause.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
OBJECT-COMPUTER.
MEMORY SIZE IS 8 CHARACTERS.
Combines two or more identically sequenced files on a set of specified keys.
MERGE sort-file
ON DESCENDING KEY key-field-1
WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER
COLLATING SEQUENCE IS user-alphabet
USING filename-1 filename-2
GIVING filename-3
Unsupported Communication Section clause.
Unsupported Object COBOL feature.
Unsupported Object COBOL feature.
Screen section relative line and column control.
05 some-field pic x(16)
line number is plus 1
column number is minus 8
A workhorse of the COBOL paradigm. MOVE is highly flexible, intelligent, safe and sometimes perplexing data movement verb.
01 alphanum-3 PIC XXX.
01 num2 PIC 99.
MOVE "ABCDEFG" TO xvar3
DISPLAY xvar3 END-DISPLAY
MOVE 12345 TO num2
DISPLAY num2 END-DISPLAY
displays:
ABC
45
Note the 45, MOVE uses a right to left rule when moving numerics.
Groups can be moved with
MOVE CORRESPONDING ident-1 TO ident-2
in which case only the group items of the same name will be transferred from the ident-1 group to the ident-2 fields.
LOCK MODE IS MANUAL WITH LOCK ON MULTIPLE RECORDS.
A mathematic operation.
MULTIPLY var-1 BY var-2 GIVING var-3
ON SIZE ERROR
SET invalid-result TO TRUE
END-MULTIPLY
NATIONAL character usage. Not yet supported. OpenCOBOL does support PICTURE N.
Category.
Alphabet.
An unsupported program-protoype CALL clause.
With READ, to read the next record, possibly by KEY. Also an obsolete control flow verb.
READ index-sequential-file NEXT RECORD INTO ident-1
IF condition-1
NEXT SENTENCE
ELSE
PERFORM do-something.
Specify NO locks, NO sharing, NO rewind.
CLOSE filename-1 WITH NO REWIND
READ file-1 WITH NO LOCK
Unsupported DEFAULT IS NONE.
Conditional negation. See AND, OR. Also used in operational declaratives such as NOT ON SIZE ERROR, in which case the operation succeeded without overflowing the receiving data field.
IF NOT testing
CALL "thing"
NOT ON EXCEPTION
DISPLAY "Linkage to thing, OK" END-DISPLAY
END-CALL
END-IF
Void. A zero address pointer. A symbolic literal.
CALL "thing" RETURNING NULL END-CALL
SET ADDRESS OF ptr TO NULL
IF ptr EQUAL NULL
DISPLAY "ptr not valid" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
MOVE CONCATENATE(TRIM(cbl-string TRAILING) NULL) TO c-string
Plural of NUMBER.
Category.
Category.
Unsupported Object COBOL feature.
Environment division, configuration section run-time machine paragraph.
OpenCOBOL supports
OCOBOL identification division.
program-id. runtime-computer.
environment division.
configuration section.
object-computer.
memory size is 8 characters
program collating sequence is bigiron-alphabet
segment-limit is 64
character classificiation is spanish-locale.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
special-names.
alphabet bigiron-alphabet is ebcdic
symbolic characters BS is 9
TAB is 10
LF is 11
NEWLINE is 11
CMA is 45
locale spanish-locale is "es_ES".
Unsupported Object COBOL feature.
Controls multiple occurances of data structures.
01 main-table.
03 main-record occurs 366 times depending on the-day.
05 main-field pic x occurs 132 times depending on the-len.
A data structure reference and name conflict resolution qualifier.
MOVE "abc" TO the-field OF the-record OF the-structure
Synonym for IN
Turn off a switch. See ON.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
SWITCH-1 IS mainframe
ON STATUS IS bigiron
OFF STATUS IS pc
...
SET mainframe TO OFF
Allows for placeholders in call frames and testing for said placeholders. Also allows for omitted label records, and void returns. OMITTED is only allowed with BY REFERENCE data.
CALL "thing" USING
BY REFERENCE string-var
BY VALUE number-var
BY REFERENCE OMITTED
GIVING NULL
END-CALL
...
PROGRAM-ID. thing.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
77 default-float usage float-long.
LINKAGE-SECTION.
77 string-var pic x(80).
77 number-var pic 9(8).
77 float-var usage float-long.
PROCEDURE DIVISION
USING
BY REFERENCE OPTIONAL string-var
BY VALUE number-var
BY REFERENCE OPTIONAL float-var
RETURNING OMITTED.
IF float-var IS OMITTED
SET ADDRESS OF float-var TO default-float
END-IF
Turn on a switch. See OFF.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
SWITCH-1 IS mainframe
ON STATUS IS bigiron
OFF STATUS IS pc
...
SET mainframe TO ON
Starts declaratives.
ADD 1 TO wafer-thin-mint
ON SIZE ERROR
SET get-a-bucket TO TRUE
END-ADD
Sharing control. SHARING WITH READ ONLY
Opens a file selector. Modes include INPUT, OUTPUT, I-O, EXTEND. May be OPTIONAL in the FD.
OPEN INPUT SHARING WITH ALL OTHER infile
OPEN EXTEND SHARING WITH NO OTHER myfile
Allows for referencing non-existent files. Allows for optionally OMITTED call arguments.
Code below shows optional file open and optional CALL arguments.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT OPTIONAL nofile ASSIGN TO "file.not"
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL.
...
DATA DIVISION.
LINKAGE SECTION.
77 arg PIC 99.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING OPTIONAL arg
OPEN INPUT nofile
CLOSE nofile
IF arg IS OMITTED OR NOT NUMERIC
MOVE 0 TO RETURN-CODE
ELSE
MOVE arg TO RETURN-CODE
END-IF
GOBACK.
A currently unsupported paragraph of the IDENTIFICATION division.
Logical operation. See AND, NOT. OpenCOBOL supports COBOL’s logical expression shortcuts. Order of precedence can be controlled with parenthesis, and default to NOT, AND, OR, right to left.
IF A NOT EQUAL 1 OR 2 OR 3 OR 5
DISPLAY "FORE!" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
Sort clause to influence how duplicates are managed.
sort sort-work
ascending key work-rec with duplicates in order
using sort-in
giving sort-out.
In 1.1pre-rel, WITH DUPLICATES IN ORDER is a default.
Defines a file’s storage organization. One of INDEXED, RELATIVE, SEQUENTIAL. OpenCOBOL also supports a LINE SEQUENTIAL structure.
File sharing option, ALL OTHER, NO OTHER.
EVALUATE‘s else clause.
OCOBOL*> Here be dragons <*
EVALUATE TRUE
WHEN a IS 1
PERFORM paragraph-1
WHEN OTHER
ALTER paragraph-1 TO paragraph-2
PERFORM paragraph-3
END-EVALUATE
File OPEN mode. Procedure named in SORT
sort sort-work
on descending key work-rec
collating sequence is mixed
input procedure is sort-transform
output procedure is output-uppercase.
Declarative clause for STRING and UNSTRING that will trigger on space overflow conditions.
A display control for SCREEN section fields.
Unsupportd Object COBOL METHOD-ID clause.
Numeric USAGE clause, equivalent to COMPUTATIONAL-3. Holds each digit in a 4-bit field.
From the opencobol-2.0 tarball testsuite
OCOBOL
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 G-1.
02 X-1 PIC 9(1) VALUE 1
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-2.
02 X-2 PIC 9(2) VALUE 12
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-3.
02 X-3 PIC 9(3) VALUE 123
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-4.
02 X-4 PIC 9(4) VALUE 1234
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-5.
02 X-5 PIC 9(5) VALUE 12345
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-6.
02 X-6 PIC 9(6) VALUE 123456
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-7.
02 X-7 PIC 9(7) VALUE 1234567
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-8.
02 X-8 PIC 9(8) VALUE 12345678
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-9.
02 X-9 PIC 9(9) VALUE 123456789
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-10.
02 X-10 PIC 9(10) VALUE 1234567890
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-11.
02 X-11 PIC 9(11) VALUE 12345678901
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-12.
02 X-12 PIC 9(12) VALUE 123456789012
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-13.
02 X-13 PIC 9(13) VALUE 1234567890123
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-14.
02 X-14 PIC 9(14) VALUE 12345678901234
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-15.
02 X-15 PIC 9(15) VALUE 123456789012345
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-16.
02 X-16 PIC 9(16) VALUE 1234567890123456
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-17.
02 X-17 PIC 9(17) VALUE 12345678901234567
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-18.
02 X-18 PIC 9(18) VALUE 123456789012345678
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S1.
02 X-S1 PIC S9(1) VALUE -1
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S2.
02 X-S2 PIC S9(2) VALUE -12
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S3.
02 X-S3 PIC S9(3) VALUE -123
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S4.
02 X-S4 PIC S9(4) VALUE -1234
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S5.
02 X-S5 PIC S9(5) VALUE -12345
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S6.
02 X-S6 PIC S9(6) VALUE -123456
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S7.
02 X-S7 PIC S9(7) VALUE -1234567
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S8.
02 X-S8 PIC S9(8) VALUE -12345678
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S9.
02 X-S9 PIC S9(9) VALUE -123456789
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S10.
02 X-S10 PIC S9(10) VALUE -1234567890
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S11.
02 X-S11 PIC S9(11) VALUE -12345678901
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S12.
02 X-S12 PIC S9(12) VALUE -123456789012
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S13.
02 X-S13 PIC S9(13) VALUE -1234567890123
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S14.
02 X-S14 PIC S9(14) VALUE -12345678901234
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S15.
02 X-S15 PIC S9(15) VALUE -123456789012345
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S16.
02 X-S16 PIC S9(16) VALUE -1234567890123456
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S17.
02 X-S17 PIC S9(17) VALUE -12345678901234567
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
01 G-S18.
02 X-S18 PIC S9(18) VALUE -123456789012345678
PACKED-DECIMAL.
02 FILLER PIC X(18) VALUE SPACE.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
*> Dump all values <*
CALL "dump" USING G-1
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-2
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-3
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-4
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-5
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-6
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-7
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-8
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-9
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-10
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-11
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-12
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-13
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-14
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-15
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-16
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-17
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-18
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S1
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S2
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S3
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S4
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S5
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S6
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S7
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S8
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S9
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S10
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S11
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S12
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S13
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S14
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S15
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S16
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S17
END-CALL.
CALL "dump" USING G-S18
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-1.
CALL "dump" USING G-1
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-2.
CALL "dump" USING G-2
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-3.
CALL "dump" USING G-3
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-4.
CALL "dump" USING G-4
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-5.
CALL "dump" USING G-5
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-6.
CALL "dump" USING G-6
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-7.
CALL "dump" USING G-7
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-8.
CALL "dump" USING G-8
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-9.
CALL "dump" USING G-9
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-10.
CALL "dump" USING G-10
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-11.
CALL "dump" USING G-11
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-12.
CALL "dump" USING G-12
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-13.
CALL "dump" USING G-13
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-14.
CALL "dump" USING G-14
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-15.
CALL "dump" USING G-15
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-16.
CALL "dump" USING G-16
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-17.
CALL "dump" USING G-17
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-18.
CALL "dump" USING G-18
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S1.
CALL "dump" USING G-S1
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S2.
CALL "dump" USING G-S2
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S3.
CALL "dump" USING G-S3
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S4.
CALL "dump" USING G-S4
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S5.
CALL "dump" USING G-S5
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S6.
CALL "dump" USING G-S6
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S7.
CALL "dump" USING G-S7
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S8.
CALL "dump" USING G-S8
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S9.
CALL "dump" USING G-S9
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S10.
CALL "dump" USING G-S10
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S11.
CALL "dump" USING G-S11
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S12.
CALL "dump" USING G-S12
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S13.
CALL "dump" USING G-S13
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S14.
CALL "dump" USING G-S14
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S15.
CALL "dump" USING G-S15
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S16.
CALL "dump" USING G-S16
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S17.
CALL "dump" USING G-S17
END-CALL.
INITIALIZE X-S18.
CALL "dump" USING G-S18
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-1.
CALL "dump" USING G-1
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-2.
CALL "dump" USING G-2
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-3.
CALL "dump" USING G-3
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-4.
CALL "dump" USING G-4
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-5.
CALL "dump" USING G-5
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-6.
CALL "dump" USING G-6
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-7.
CALL "dump" USING G-7
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-8.
CALL "dump" USING G-8
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-9.
CALL "dump" USING G-9
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-10.
CALL "dump" USING G-10
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-11.
CALL "dump" USING G-11
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-12.
CALL "dump" USING G-12
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-13.
CALL "dump" USING G-13
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-14.
CALL "dump" USING G-14
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-15.
CALL "dump" USING G-15
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-16.
CALL "dump" USING G-16
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-17.
CALL "dump" USING G-17
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-18.
CALL "dump" USING G-18
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S1.
CALL "dump" USING G-S1
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S2.
CALL "dump" USING G-S2
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S3.
CALL "dump" USING G-S3
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S4.
CALL "dump" USING G-S4
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S5.
CALL "dump" USING G-S5
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S6.
CALL "dump" USING G-S6
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S7.
CALL "dump" USING G-S7
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S8.
CALL "dump" USING G-S8
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S9.
CALL "dump" USING G-S9
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S10.
CALL "dump" USING G-S10
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S11.
CALL "dump" USING G-S11
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S12.
CALL "dump" USING G-S12
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S13.
CALL "dump" USING G-S13
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S14.
CALL "dump" USING G-S14
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S15.
CALL "dump" USING G-S15
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S16.
CALL "dump" USING G-S16
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S17.
CALL "dump" USING G-S17
END-CALL.
MOVE ZERO TO X-S18.
CALL "dump" USING G-S18
END-CALL.
STOP RUN.
With a support file to dump the first 10 bytes of each record
#include <stdio.h>
#ifdef __INTEL_COMPILER
#pragma warning ( disable : 1419 )
#endif
int dump (unsigned char *data);
int dump (unsigned char *data)
{
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
printf ("%02x", data[i]);
puts ("");
return 0;
}
/**/
Which captures:
1f202020202020202020
012f2020202020202020
123f2020202020202020
01234f20202020202020
12345f20202020202020
0123456f202020202020
1234567f202020202020
012345678f2020202020
123456789f2020202020
01234567890f20202020
12345678901f20202020
0123456789012f202020
1234567890123f202020
012345678901234f2020
123456789012345f2020
01234567890123456f20
12345678901234567f20
0123456789012345678f
1d202020202020202020
012d2020202020202020
123d2020202020202020
01234d20202020202020
12345d20202020202020
0123456d202020202020
1234567d202020202020
012345678d2020202020
123456789d2020202020
01234567890d20202020
12345678901d20202020
0123456789012d202020
1234567890123d202020
012345678901234d2020
123456789012345d2020
01234567890123456d20
12345678901234567d20
0123456789012345678d
0f202020202020202020
000f2020202020202020
000f2020202020202020
00000f20202020202020
00000f20202020202020
0000000f202020202020
0000000f202020202020
000000000f2020202020
000000000f2020202020
00000000000f20202020
00000000000f20202020
0000000000000f202020
0000000000000f202020
000000000000000f2020
000000000000000f2020
00000000000000000f20
00000000000000000f20
0000000000000000000f
0c202020202020202020
000c2020202020202020
000c2020202020202020
00000c20202020202020
00000c20202020202020
0000000c202020202020
0000000c202020202020
000000000c2020202020
000000000c2020202020
00000000000c20202020
00000000000c20202020
0000000000000c202020
0000000000000c202020
000000000000000c2020
000000000000000c2020
00000000000000000c20
00000000000000000c20
0000000000000000000c
0f202020202020202020
000f2020202020202020
000f2020202020202020
00000f20202020202020
00000f20202020202020
0000000f202020202020
0000000f202020202020
000000000f2020202020
000000000f2020202020
00000000000f20202020
00000000000f20202020
0000000000000f202020
0000000000000f202020
000000000000000f2020
000000000000000f2020
00000000000000000f20
00000000000000000f20
0000000000000000000f
0c202020202020202020
000c2020202020202020
000c2020202020202020
00000c20202020202020
00000c20202020202020
0000000c202020202020
0000000c202020202020
000000000c2020202020
000000000c2020202020
00000000000c20202020
00000000000c20202020
0000000000000c202020
0000000000000c202020
000000000000000c2020
000000000000000c2020
00000000000000000c20
00000000000000000c20
0000000000000000000c
Defines a character to use for short record padding.
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL PADDING CHARACTER IS '*'
Write and Report writer clause.
WRITE theline AFTER ADVANCING PAGE
PAGE LIMITS ARE 66 LINES 132 COLUMNS
HEADING iS 4 FIRST DETAIL IS 6
LAST CONTROL HEADING IS 58
LAST DETAIL IS 60
FOOTING IS 62
A special register, qualified by Report Name. Report Writer is recognized but not yet supported.
An allowable EXIT point.
NAMED-PARAGRAPH.
PERFORM FOREVER
IF solution
EXIT PARAGRAPH
END-IF
PERFORM solve-the-puzzle.
END-PERFORM.
A COBOL procedural and inline control flow verb.
beginning.
PERFORM FOREVER
PERFORM miracles
END-PERFORM
GOBACK.
miracles.
DISPLAY wonders END-DISPLAY.
A commonly used shortform of PICTURE.
The PICTURE clause is easily one of COBOL’s greatest strengths. Fully detailed pictorial data definitions. The internal complexity is left to compiler authors, while developers and management are free to describe data at a very high conceptual level.
The two most common picture characters are 9 and X, for numeric and alphanumeric data respectively. For alphbetic data, A can be used.
Aside from data storage pictures, a vast array of edit pictures are allowed for control of input and output formatting.
+, -, A, B, N, X, Z, “*”, ‘CR’, ‘DB’, E, S, V, ., P, currency symbol
OpenCOBOL offers full standards support of all alpha, alphanumeric and numeric storage specifiers as well as full support for edit and numeric-edit clauses.
An example of some of the PICTURE options
*>>source format is free
*> ********************************************************************
*> Author: jrls (John Ellis)
*> Date: Oct-2008
*> Purpose: formated output examples using pic strings.
*> ********************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. picstring.
data division.
working-storage section.
*><*
01 header.
05 filler pic xxx value "ln".
05 filler pic x(11) value " disp1".
05 filler pic x(11) value " disp2".
05 filler pic x(11) value " disp3".
05 filler pic x(11) value " disp4".
05 filler pic x(12) value " disp5".
05 filler pic x(9) value " an1".
05 filler pic x(14) value " phone".
05 filler pic x(10) value " date".
*><*
01 headerLines pic x(90) value all "-".
*><*
01 displayformats.
05 linenum pic 99 value 1.
05 disp1 pic zzz,zz9.99 value zero.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 disp2 pic $zz,zz9.99 value zero.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 disp3 pic ---,--9.99 value zero.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 disp4 pic $-z,zz9.99 value zero.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 disp5 pic -zz,zz9.zz- blank zero value zero.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
*><*an1 is actually a string field because of the embedded blanks, thus you put value spaces.
05 an1 pic 99b99b99 value spaces.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 phone pic bxxxbxxxbxxxx value spaces.
05 filler pic x value spaces.
05 dispdate pic 99/99/9999 value zero.
*><*
procedure division.
0000-start.
*><*
display headerLines.
display header.
display headerLines.
*><****************************************************
move 220.22 to disp1,
disp2.
move -220.22 to disp3,
disp4,
disp5.
inspect disp5 replacing first "-" by "(",
first "-" by ")".
move 10122008 to dispdate.
*><****************************************************
*><*Please note the results of moving 'abcd' to an1.
*><*an1 will show up as 00 00 00 because alpha data was
*><*moved into instead of numeric data.
*><*
*><*The phone field will display " abc def ghij" because
*><*'b' in the pic string.
*><****************************************************
move "abcd" to an1.
move "abcdefghij" to phone.
display displayformats.
add 1 to linenum.
move zero to disp4,
disp5.
*><****************************************************
*><*Here after moving data to an1 and phone, I use the
*><*inspect statement to replace the blanks.
*><****************************************************
move "123456" to an1.
move "5555551234" to phone.
inspect an1 replacing all " " by "-".
inspect phone replacing first " " by "(",
first " " by ")",
first " " by "-".
display displayformats.
inspect phone converting "23456789" to "adgjmptw".
display phone.
perform 0010-endProgram.
*><*
0010-endProgram.
stop run.
*><*
Outputs:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ln disp1 disp2 disp3 disp4 disp5 an1 phone date
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 220.22 $220.22 -220.22 $-220.22 (220.22) 00 00 00 abc def ghij 10/12/2008
02 220.22 $220.22 -220.22 $ 0.00 12-34-56 (555)555-1234 10/12/2008
(jjj)jjj-1adg
Screen section relative line / column control during layout.
01 form-1 AUTO.
05 LINE 01 COLUMN 01 VALUE "Form!".
05 LINE PLUS 3 COLUMN 01 VALUE value-4.
Allocates a restricted use variable for holding addresses.
01 c-handle USAGE IS POINTER.
CALL "open-lib" RETURNING c-handle
ON EXCEPTION
DISPLAY "Can't link open-lib" END-DISPLAY
STOP RUN RETURNING 1
END-CALL
IF c-handle EQUAL NULL
DISPLAY "Can't open-lib" END-DISPLAY
STOP RUN RETURNING 1
END-IF
CALL "use-lib" USING BY VALUE c-handle BY CONTENT "Hello" & x"00"
CALL "close-lib" USING BY VALUE c-handle
*> Interfacing with the C ABI is just a teenie-weenie bit of voodoo
*> Pass the REFERENCE or use RETURNING if C sets the value. Use
*> VALUE when you want C to have its pointer, not the
*> REFERENCE address of the COBOL POINTER. So most inits are
*> BY REFERENCE (or RETURNING) and most usage, including
*> rundown of C ABI tools, is USING BY VALUE.
*> <*
Alias for COLUMN in screen section layouts. Also an obsolete, recognized but not supported:
MULTIPLE FILE TAPE CONTAINS file-1 POSITION 1 file-2 POSITION 80
Report Writer clause used for optional field and group output.
05 field PIC X(16) PRESENT WHEN sum > 0.
Special name.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
PRINTER IS myprint
DISPLAY "test" UPON PRINTER END-DISPLAY
Report Writer declarative to SUPPRESS report printing.
The COBOL DIVISION that holds the executable statements. Also used with INPUT and OUTPUT sort procedures.
Alias for PROGRAM-POINTER, capable of holding a callable address.
The program identifier. Case sensitive, unlike all other OpenCOBOL identifiers. OpenCOBOL produces C Application Binary Interface linkable entities and this identifier must conform to those rules. Dashes in names are replaced by a hex string equivalent.
A data USAGE clause defining a field that can hold the executable address of a CALL routine.
77 callback USAGE PROGRAM-POINTER.
...
SET callback TO ENTRY a-program-id
CALL callback
Unsupported Object COBOL phrase.
Unsupported Object COBOL phrase.
Unsupported Communication Section clause.
Unsupported Communication Section clause.
A figurative constant representing ‘”’.
DISPLAY QUOTE 123 QUOTE END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
"123"
A figurative constant representing ‘”’.
01 var PICTURE X(4).
MOVE ALL QUOTES TO var
DISPLAY var END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
""""
Exception handling. There IS support for exceptions in OpenCOBOL but it is currently fairly limited. See FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION for a sample. RAISE is not yet recognized.
Exception handling. There IS support for exceptions in OpenCOBOL but it is currently limited. RAISING is not yet recognized.
A file access mode. RANDOM access allows seeks to any point in a file, usually by KEY.
Report writer DATA division, REPORT section descriptor. Currently unsupported.
DATA DIVISION.
REPORT SECTION.
RD report-1
PAGE LIMIT IS 66 LINES.
A staple of COBOL. Read a record.
READ infile PREVIOUS RECORD INTO back-record
AT END
SET attop TO TRUE
NOT AT END
PERFORM cursor-calculator
END-READ
An unsupported Communication Section clause.
Multiple use phrase.
FD file
RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM 1 TO 80 CHARACTERS
DEPENDING ON size-field
SELECT file
ASSIGN TO filename
ACCESS MODE IS RANDOM
RECORD KEY IS key-field
ALTERNATE KEY IS alt-key WITH DUPLICATES.
READ infile NEXT RECORD INTO display-rec END-READ
An obsolete, recognized, but ignored file descriptor clause.
FD file
RECORD IS VARYING IN SIZE FROM 1 TO 80 CHARACTERS
DEPENDING ON size-field
RECORDING MODE IS F.
Specifies a PROGRAM-ID as having the recursive attribute. Recursive sub programs can CALL themselves.
This qualifier has implications on how OpenCOBOL allocates storage. Normally storage is stacked, recursion can chew through stack space very quickly. Sub programs marked RECURSIVE are usually allocated using the memory heap.
PROGRAM-ID nextbigthing IS RECURSIVE.
A very powerful DATA division control alllowing for redefinition of memory storage, including incompatible data by type.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 X PIC X.
01 G REDEFINES X.
02 A PIC X.
02 B REDEFINES A PIC 9.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
STOP RUN.
The default COBOL CALL argument handler. CALL arguments can be
BY REFERENCE
BY CONTENT
BY VALUE
where by reference passes a reference pointer, allowing data modification inside sub programs.
Unsupported.
File organization where the position of a logical record is determined by its relative record number.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110806
*> Purpose: RELATIVE file organization
*> Tectonics: cobc -g -debug -W -x relatives.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. relatives.
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
input-output section.
file-control.
select optional relatives
assign to "relatives.dat"
file status is filestatus
organization is relative
access mode is dynamic
relative key is nicknum.
data division.
file section.
fd relatives.
01 person.
05 firstname pic x(48).
05 lastname pic x(64).
05 relationship pic x(32).
working-storage section.
77 filestatus pic 9(2).
88 ineof value 1 when set to false is 0.
77 satisfaction pic 9.
88 satisfied value 1 when set to false is 0.
77 nicknum pic 9(2).
77 title-line pic x(34).
88 writing-names value "Adding, Overwriting. 00 to finish".
88 reading-names value "Which record? 00 to quit".
77 problem pic x(80).
screen section.
01 detail-screen.
05 line 1 column 1 from title-line erase eos.
05 line 2 column 1 value "Record: ".
05 pic 9(2) line 2 column 16 using nicknum.
05 line 3 column 1 value "First name: ".
05 pic x(48) line 3 column 16 using firstname.
05 line 4 column 1 value "Last name: ".
05 pic x(64) line 4 column 16 using lastname.
05 line 5 column 1 value "Relation: ".
05 pic x(32) line 5 column 16 using relationship.
05 pic x(80) line 6 column 1 from problem.
01 show-screen.
05 line 1 column 1 from title-line erase eos.
05 line 2 column 1 value "Record: ".
05 pic 9(2) line 2 column 16 using nicknum.
05 line 3 column 1 value "First name: ".
05 pic x(48) line 3 column 16 from firstname.
05 line 4 column 1 value "Last name: ".
05 pic x(64) line 4 column 16 from lastname.
05 line 5 column 1 value "Relation: ".
05 pic x(32) line 5 column 16 from relationship.
05 pic x(80) line 6 column 1 from problem.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
procedure division.
beginning.
*> Open the file and find the highest record number
*> which is a sequential read operation after START
open input relatives
move 99 to nicknum
start relatives key is less than or equal to nicknum
invalid key
move concatenate('NO START' space filestatus)
to problem
move 00 to nicknum
not invalid key
read relatives next end-read
end-start
*> Close and open for i-o
close relatives
open i-o relatives
*> Prompt for numbers and names to add until 00
set writing-names to true
set satisfied to false
perform fill-file through fill-file-end
until satisfied
close relatives
*> Prompt for numbers to view names of until 00
open input relatives
set reading-names to true
set satisfied to false
perform record-request through record-request-end
until satisfied
perform close-shop
.
ending.
goback.
*> get some user data to add
fill-file.
display detail-screen end-display.
accept detail-screen end-accept.
move spaces to problem
if nicknum equal 0
set satisfied to true
go to fill-file-end
end-if.
.
write-file.
write person
invalid key
move concatenate("overwriting: " nicknum) to problem
rewrite person
invalid key
move concatenate(
exception-location() space nicknum
space filestatus)
to problem
end-rewrite
end-write.
display detail-screen end-display
.
fill-file-end.
.
*> get keys to display
record-request.
display show-screen end-display
accept show-screen end-accept
move spaces to problem
if nicknum equals 0
set satisfied to true
go to record-request-end
end-if
.
*> The magic of relative record number reads
read-relation.
read relatives
invalid key
move exception-location() to problem
not invalid key
move spaces to problem
end-read
display show-screen end-display
.
record-request-end.
.
*> get out <*
close-shop.
close relatives.
goback.
.
end program relatives.
with sample screens:
Adding, Overwriting. 00 to finish
Record: 04
First name: Brad____________________________________________
Last name: Tiffin__________________________________________________________
Relation: brother_________________________
allowing for new record additions or overwrites of existing key numbers, and:
Which record? 00 to quit
Record: 03
First name: Brian
Last name: Tiffin
Relation:
where typing in a nicknum record number retrieves the relative record.
Release a record to a SORT. Used with INPUT PROCEDURE of SORT verb.
RELEASE record-1 FROM identifier-1
Access to integer remainders during division.
DIVIDE
hex-val BY 16 GIVING left-nibble REMAINDER right-nibble
END-DIVIDE
A close clause.
CLOSE filename-1 REEL FOR REMOVAL
Specifies that the file is stored on multiple removable tapes/disks. Not all systems support such devices.
OpenCOBOL supports regrouping of level 02-49 data items with level 66 and RENAMES.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110606
*> Purpose: Demonstration of 66-level datanames
*> Tectonics: cobc
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. sixtysix.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 master.
05 field-1 pic s9(9).
05 field-2 pic x(16).
05 field-3 pic x(4).
05 field-4 pic s9(9).
66 sixtysix renames field-2.
66 group-66 renames field-2 through field-4.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
move -66 to field-1
move "sixtysix" to field-2
move "ABCD" to field-3
multiply field-1 by -1 giving field-4 end-multiply
display "master : " master end-display
display "field-1 : " field-1 end-display
display "sixtysix: " sixtysix end-display
display "group-66: " group-66 end-display
goback.
end program sixtysix.
giving:
$ ./sixtysix
master : 00000006vsixtysix ABCD000000066
field-1 : -000000066
sixtysix: sixtysix
group-66: sixtysix ABCD000000066
A COBOL text preprocessing operator.
REPLACE ==MARKER== BY ==DISPLAY "REPLACE EXAMPLE" END-DISPLAY==.
identification division.
program-id. prog.
procedure division.
MARKER
goback.
end program prog.
And then to see how that REPLACE is working, use cobc with the -E argument
# 1 "replacing.cob"
identification division.
program-id. prog.
procedure division.
DISPLAY "REPLACE EXAMPLE" END-DISPLAY
goback.
end program prog.
Unsupported Report Writer section and File descriptor clause.
Unsupported declarative for Report Writer.
Unsupported Report Writer file descriptor clause associating files with named reports.
A paragraph of the CONFIGURATION SECTION. OpenCOBOL supports the FUNCTION ALL INTRINSIC clause of the REPOSITORY. Allows source code to use intrinsic functions without the FUNCTION keyword.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110213
*> Purpose: Demonstrate an intrinstric function shortcut
*> Tectonics: cobc -x functionall.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. functionall.
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
display function pi space function e end-display
display pi space e end-display
goback.
end program functionall.
Sample output:
$ cobc -x functionall.cob
$ ./functionall
3.1415926535897932384626433832795029 2.7182818284590452353602874713526625
3.1415926535897932384626433832795029 2.7182818284590452353602874713526625
Without the repository paragraph:
$ cobc -x functionall.cob
functionall.cob:19: Error: 'pi' undefined
functionall.cob:19: Error: 'e' undefined
Recognized but ignored Screen section field attribute.
An unsupported SELECT clause.
Unsupported Report Writer data control field clause.
Unsupported declarative control flow statement.
Unsupported record locking wait and retry clause.
Return records in a SORT OUTPUT PROCEDURE.
Specify the destination of CALL results.
01 result PIC S9(8).
CALL "libfunc" RETURNING result END-CALL
Specify the return field for a sub-program.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING thing RETURNING otherthing
SCREEN section field display attribute. Functionality dependent on terminal and operating system support and settings.
A really cool lyric in the Black Eyed Peas song, “Hey Mama”.
Allow overwrite of records where primary key exists.
write person
invalid key
move concatenate("overwriting: " nicknum) to problem
rewrite person
invalid key
move concatenate(
exception-location() space nicknum
space filestatus)
to problem
end-rewrite
end-write.
Short form for unsupported REPORT FOOTING.
Short form for unsupported REPORT HEADING.
Ignored SYNCHRONIZED clause.
Recognized but not fully supported revert of transactional revert of file writes. See COMMIT.
Well defined rounding clause applied to arithmetic. Defined well enough for bank managers to feel comfortable handing their calculations over to a bunch of nerds.
COMPUTE total-value ROUNDED = 1.0 / 6.0 END-COMPUTE
A stopping point.
STOP RUN RETURNING 1
Terminates run regardless of nesting depth, returning control (and result) to operating system. See GOBACK and EXIT PROGRAM for other run unit terminations.
I-O-CONTROL clause for SAME RECORD AREA.
Screen section.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ************************************************************ <*
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20110701
*> Purpose: Play with 2.0 screen section
*> Tectonics: cobc
*> ************************************************************ <*
identification division.
program-id. screening.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 some-data pic s9(9).
screen section.
01 detail-screen.
03 line 1 column 1 value "title line".
03 line 2 column 1 value "field: ".
03 line 2 column 16 using some-data.
*> ************************************************************ <*
procedure division.
display detail-screen end-display
accept detail-screen end-accept
goback.
end program screening.
being a poor representation of the plethora of field attribute control allowed in OpenCOBOL screen section.
Screen field attributes include:
During ACCEPT, USING fields are read/write, FROM fields are read and TO fields are write.
See What are the OpenCOBOL SCREEN SECTION colour values? for colour values.
A powerful table and file search verb. See Linear SEARCH for an example.
Clause of unsupported read/write RETRY on lock.
COBOL source code is organized in DIVISION, SECTION, paragraphs and sentences. OpenCOBOL supports user named sections and recognizes the following list of pre-defined sections.
User defined sections provide for source code organization and use of PERFORM with THROUGH for tried and true COBOL procedural programming.
SCREEN section field attribute. Displayed as asterisks.
Unsupported Communication section clause.
FILE-CONTROL phrase. Associates files with names, descriptors, and options.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT fileresource
ASSIGN TO external-name
FILE STATUS IS identifier
COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name
LOCK MODE IS MANUAL WITH LOCK ON MULTIPLE RECORDS
RECORD DELIMITER IS STANDARD
RESERVE num AREA
SHARING WITH NO OTHER
ORGANIZATION IS INDEX
ACCESS MODE IS DYNAMIC
RECORD KEY IS key-field
ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS key-field-2 WITH DUPLICATES
ALTERNATE RECORD KEY IS key-field-3.
though, naming a quick file can be as simple as
SELECT myfile ASSIGN TO "name.txt".
which will be a default LINE SEQUENTIAL file.
Unsupported Object COBOL clause.
Unsupported Communication section verb.
An obsolete control flow clause. CONTINUE is preferred to NEXT SENTENCE.
Fine tuned control over leading and trailing sign indicator.
77 field-1 PICTURE S9(8) SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE.
Controls COLLATING sequence for character compares, by defining a character set.
OpenCOBOL supports both fixed length SEQUENTIAL and newline terminated LINE SEQUENTIAL file access.
That last one is pretty cool. An 88 level conditional set TRUE will cause the associated value to change to a value that satifies the condition as true.
01 field-1 pic 99.
88 cond-1 value 42.
MOVE 0 TO field-1
DISPLAY field-1 END-DISPLAY
SET cond-1 TO TRUE
DISPLAY field-1 END-DISPLAY
00 and 42 are displayed.
File sharing option.
Functionality dependent on build options and operating system running OpenCOBOL.
Fine tuned control over leading and trailing sign indicator.
77 field-1 PICTURE S9(8) SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE.
OpenCOBOL supports the full gamut of COBOL numeric data storage. SIGNED and UNSIGNED being part and parcel.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-LONG, BINARY-LONG SIGNED, and SIGNED-LONG.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-LONG, BINARY-LONG SIGNED, and SIGNED-INT.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-SHORT SIGNED.
Multi purpose.
OpenCOBOL allows SIZE IS control on CALL arguments.
Arthimetic operations allow for declaritives on size errors.
ADD 1 TO ocobol
ON SIZE ERROR
SET erroneous TO TRUE
NOT ON SIZE ERROR
DISPLAY "Whee, ADD 1 TO COBOL" END-DISPLAY
END-ADD
STRING has a DELIMITED BY SIZE option to include entire fields.
OpenCOBOL supports USING, GIVING as well as INPUT PROCEDURE and OUTPUT PROCEDURE clauses for the SORT verb.
OCOBOL* OpenCOBOL SORT verb example using standard in and standard out
identification division.
program-id. sorting.
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select sort-in
assign keyboard
organization line sequential.
select sort-out
assign display
organization line sequential.
select sort-work
assign "sortwork".
data division.
file section.
fd sort-in.
01 in-rec pic x(255).
fd sort-out.
01 out-rec pic x(255).
sd sort-work.
01 work-rec pic x(255).
procedure division.
sort sort-work
ascending key work-rec
using sort-in
giving sort-out.
goback.
exit program.
end program sorting.
In the next sample, demonstrating INPUT PROCEDURE and OUTPUT PROCEDURE take note of the RETURN and RELEASE verbs as they are key to record by record control over sort operations.
Also, just to complicate things, this sample sorts using a mixed-case alphabet (but also places capital A out of order to demonstrate special cases that can codified in an ALPHABET).
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
******************************************************************
* Author: Brian Tiffin
* Date: 02-Sep-2008
* Purpose: An OpenCOBOL SORT verb example
* Tectonics: cobc -x sorting.cob
* ./sorting <input >output
* or simply
* ./sorting
* for keyboard and screen demos
******************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. sorting.
environment division.
configuration section.
* This sets up a sort order lower then upper except for A and a
special-names.
alphabet mixed is " AabBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTu
-"UvVwWxXyYzZ0123456789".
input-output section.
file-control.
select sort-in
assign keyboard
organization is line sequential.
select sort-out
assign display
organization is line sequential.
select sort-work
assign "sortwork".
data division.
file section.
fd sort-in.
01 in-rec pic x(255).
fd sort-out.
01 out-rec pic x(255).
sd sort-work.
01 work-rec pic x(255).
working-storage section.
01 loop-flag pic x value low-value.
procedure division.
sort sort-work
on descending key work-rec
collating sequence is mixed
input procedure is sort-transform
output procedure is output-uppercase.
display sort-return end-display.
goback.
******************************************************************
sort-transform.
move low-value to loop-flag
open input sort-in
read sort-in
at end move high-value to loop-flag
end-read
perform
until loop-flag = high-value
move FUNCTION LOWER-CASE(in-rec) to work-rec
release work-rec
read sort-in
at end move high-value to loop-flag
end-read
end-perform
close sort-in
.
******************************************************************
output-uppercase.
move low-value to loop-flag
open output sort-out
return sort-work
at end move high-value to loop-flag
end-return
perform
until loop-flag = high-value
move FUNCTION UPPER-CASE(work-rec) to out-rec
write out-rec end-write
return sort-work
at end move high-value to loop-flag
end-return
end-perform
close sort-out
.
exit program.
end program sorting.
Here is a snippet describing TABLE sorts by [jrls_swla]
table define
01 nbr-of-columns pic 9(4) value zero.
01 tcindex2 usage is index.
01 dbtables.
03 tables-columns occurs 1 to 1000 times
depending on nbr-of-columns
ascending key tcTable, tcColumn
indexed by tcindex.
05 tcTable pic x(64) value spaces.
05 tcColumn pic x(64) value spaces.
05 tcAlias pic x(10) value spaces.
05 tcOrder pic 9(4) value zero.
05 tcType pic x(10) value spaces.
05 tcMaxLen pic 9(4) value zero.
*><*
01 aliasName.
05 pic x value "t".
05 anVal pic 9(3) value zero.
01 showdata.
05 sdTable pic x(17) value spaces.
05 sdColumn pic x(17) value spaces.
05 sdType pic x(10) value spaces.
05 sdOrder pic zzzzz-.
05 sdMaxLen pic zzzzz.
table load
perform varying rows from 1 by 1
until rows > dbNumRows
call "dbNextRow" using by value dbResult,
by reference ColumnBuff,
by reference CbuffDesc
returning dbResult
add 1 to nbr-of-columns
set tcindex up by 1
move cbTable to tcTable(tcindex)
move cbColumn to tcColumn(tcindex)
move cbType to tcType(tcindex)
move cbOrder to tcOrder(tcindex)
move cbMaxLen to tcMaxLen(tcindex)
if nbr-of-columns = 1
add 1 to anVal
else
set tcindex2 to tcindex
set tcindex2 down by 1
if cbTable <> tcTable(tcindex2)
add 1 to anVal
end-if
end-if
move aliasName to tcAlias(tcindex)
end-perform.
table sort
sort tables-columns ascending key tcTable, tcColumn.
display table
perform varying tcindex from 1 by 1
until tcindex > nbr-of-columns
move tcTable(tcindex) to sdTable
move tcColumn(tcindex) to sdColumn
move tcOrder(tcindex) to sdOrder
move tcType(tcindex) to sdType
move tcMaxLen(tcindex) to sdMaxLen
display showdata
end-perform.
Excercise for the audience. Could the above code be simplified by using
MOVE CORRESPONDING cbRecord to table-columns(tcindex)
...
MOVE CORRESPONDING table-columns(tcindex) to showdata
with a few judicious field name changes?
There is an external sort utility referenced in What is ocsort?
Used in an I-O-CONTROL paragraph with the SAME clause:
SAME SORT-MERGE AREA FOR filename-1.
The SORT-MERGE keyword and SORT keyword are equivalent in this case.
A SPECIAL-REGISTER used by the OpenCOBOL SORT routines.
A programmer may set SORT-RETURN in an INPUT PROCEDURE.
Compiler directive controlling source code handling.
>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
>>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
OpenCOBOL allows use of this directive at programmer whim. cobc defaults to FIXED format source handling, so the directive must occur beyond the sequence and indicator columns unless the -free compile option is used.
Split keys are a pending feature in OpenCOBOL.
SELECT ...
RECORD KEY IS key-name SOURCE is dname-2 dname-3
Also a pending Report Writer data source clause.
A paragraph of the IDENTIFICATION division. Treated as a comment.
Currently unsupported SOURCES ARE report writer clause.
A figurative constant representing a space character.
A figurative constant representing space characters.
OpenCOBOL supports a fair complete set of the SPECIAL-NAMES in common use.
Sets internal file fields that will influence sequential READ NEXT and READ PREVIOUS for INDEXED files. Can also be used to seek to the FIRST or LAST record of a file for SEQUENTIAL access modes.
start indexing
key is less than
keyfield of indexing-record
invalid key
display
"bad start: " keyfield of indexing-record
end-display
set no-more-records to true
not invalid key
read indexing previous record
at end set no-more-records to true
end-read
end-start
The conditionals are quite powerful.
KEY IS GREATER THAN
KEY IS >
KEY IS LESS THAN
KEY IS <
KEY IS EQUAL TO
KEY IS =
KEY IS NOT GREATER THAN
KEY IS NOT >
KEY IS NOT LESS THAN
KEY IS NOT <
KEY IS NOT EQUAL TO
KEY IS NOT =
KEY IS <>
KEY IS GREATER THAN OR EQUAL TO
KEY IS >=
KEY IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO
KEY IS <=
See Does OpenCOBOL support ISAM? for some example source code.
Unsupported.
Multi-purpose.
Unsupported Report Writer OCCURS subclause.
End a run and return control to the operating system.
STOP RUN RETURNING 5.
Forms include:
String together a set of variables with controlled delimiters.
01 var PICTURE X(5).
STRING
"abc" DELIMITED BY "b"
"def" DELIMITED BY SIZE
"ghi" DELIMITED BY "z"
INTO var
ON OVERFLOW
DISPLAY "var is full at" SPACE LENGTH OF var END-DISPLAY
END-STRING
DISPLAY var END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
var is full at 5
adefg
OpenCOBOL also fully supports the WITH POINTER clause to set the initial and track the position in the output character variable.
Unsupported.
Unsupported Communication section clause.
Unsupported Communication section clause.
Unsupported Communication section clause.
Arithmetic operation.
SUBTRACT a b c FROM d ROUNDED END-SUBTRACT
SUBTRACT a FROM b GIVING c
ON SIZE ERROR
SET math-error TO TRUE
NOT ON SIZE ERROR
SET math-error TO FALSE
END-SUBTRACT
SUBTRACT CORRESPONDING record-a FROM record-b ROUNDED
ON SIZE ERROR
SET something-wrong TO TRUE
END-SUBTRACT
A REPORT SECTION control break summation field clause. Unsupported.
Unsupported Object COBOL clause.
Unsupported declarative to suppress printing.
Unsupported.
SPECIAL-NAMES clause allowing user defined figurative constants.
Alias for SYNCHRONIZED
Control padding inside record definitions, in particular to match C structures.
01 infile.
03 slice occurs 64 times depending on slices.
05 stext usage pointer synchronized.
05 val float-long synchronized.
05 ftext usage pointer synchronized.
OBJECT-COMPUTER clause for locale support.
CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION IS SYSTEM-DEFAULT
Unsupported keyword, but OpenCOBOL fully supports tables, including SORT.
INSPECT clause for counting occurances of a literal.
INSPECT record-1 TALLYING ident-1 FOR LEADING "0"
A device type used in ASSIGN.
Unsupported Comminication section clause.
Currently unsupported Report Writer verb to finish up a report. See INITIATE.
Allows control over when loop conditionals are tested. WITH TEST BEFORE is the default. WITH TEST AFTER will always evaluate the body of the loop at least once.
perform
with test after
varying x from 1 by xstep
until x >= function e
if x > function e
move function e to x-value
else
move x to x-value
end-if
compute recip = 1 / x end-compute
move recip to y-value
write outrec end-write
end-perform
Unsupported Communication section clause.
Part of the conditional clauses for readability.
IF A GREATER THAN 10
DISPLAY "A > 10" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
A somewhat disdained keyword that is part of the IF THEN ELSE control structure.
IF A > 10 THEN
DISPLAY "A GREATER THAN 10" END-DISPLAY
ELSE
DISPLAY "A LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 10" END-DISPLAY
END-IF
Used in definitions for alphabets in SPECIAL-NAMES and a procedural clause allowing PERFORM from one label THROUGH (inclusive) to another label and all paragraphs in between. Also used to specify grouping with RENAMES.
PERFORM 100-open-files THROUGH 100-files-end
Commonly used alias for THROUGH
An ACCEPT FROM source. Allows access to current clock.
01 current-time.
05 ct-hours pic 99.
05 ct-minutes pic 99.
05 ct-seconds pic 99.
05 ct-hundredths pic 99.
ACCEPT current-time FROM TIME
Multi-purpose destination specifier.
ADD 1 TO cobol GIVING OpenCOBOL
ON SIZE ERROR
DISPLAY "Potential exceeds expectations" END-DISPLAY
END-ADD
A LINAGE clause.
Multi-purpose. FUNCTION TRIM allows a TRAILING keyword. An INSPECT TALLYING subclause.
A SET target. Used in EVALUATE to control when the operation succeeds. When used with a conditional 88 level name, will set the corresponding field to a listed VALUE.
01 field-1 pic x.
88 cond-1 values 'a','b','c'.
SET cond-1 TO TRUE
DISPLAY field-1 END-DISPLAY
An unsupported Report Writer report group clause. Also unsupported data description clause.
Unsupported data description clause that will allow user defined record layouts.
Currently unsupported Universal Character Set alphabet. UCS-4 would store international code points in 4 bytes.
SCREEN section field attribute.
Unsupported Object COBOL exception object clause.
Usage clause specifing that a value will not include any sign and therefore can’t be negative.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-LONG UNSIGNED and UNSIGNED-LONG.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-LONG UNSIGNED and UNSIGNED-INT.
A native storage format NUMERIC data USAGE clause. Equivalent to BINARY-SHORT UNSIGNED and UNSIGNED-SHORT.
A powerful string decomposition verb.
UNSTRING Input-Address
DELIMITED BY "," OR "/"
INTO
Street-Address DELIMITER D1 COUNT C1
Apt-Number DELIMITER D2 COUNT C2
City DELIMITER D3 COUNT C3
State DELIMITER D4 COUNT C4
Zip-Code DELIMITER D5 COUNT C5
WITH POINTER ptr-1
ON OVERFLOW
SET more-fields TO TRUE
END-UNSTRING
Sets a loop conditional.
PERFORM VARYING ident-1 FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL ident-1 > 10
CALL "thing" USING BY VALUE ident-1 END-CALL
END-PERFORM
SCREEN section field attribute.
A DISPLAY destination clause.
OpenCOBOL uses standard big-endian internal storage by default. USAGE clauses influence the data representation. The INTEL architecture uses little-endian form and OpenCOBOL programmers developing for this common chipset may need to pay heed to this for performance purposes. As per the standards, OpenCOBOL supports COMPUTATIONAL-5 native usage.
OpenCOBOL enables use of one to eight byte binary representations in both big and little endian forms.
Along with full support of all common COBOL PICTURE clauses both storage and display, OpenCOBOL supports USAGE clauses of:
OBJECT-COMPUTER clause for locale support.
CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION IS USER-DEFAULT
Unsupported internationalization clause.
Unsupported internationalization clause.
Alias for the unsupported VALIDATE-STATUS clause of the VALIDATE statement.
Unsupported.
Unsupported data validation verb.
Unsupported clause of the VALIDATE statement.
An CALL frame argument modifier. Sets values in data descriptions as well as values used with 88 level conditional names.
Plural of VALUE when more than one entry is used in an 88 conditional name.
Sets a looping variable.
PERFORM VARYING loop-counter FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL loop-counter > 10
DISPLAY loop-counter END-DISPLAY
END-PERFORM
A very powerful keyword used in EVALUATE phrases for specifying conditional expressions.
EVALUATE TRUE
WHEN A = 10
DISPLAY "A = 10" END-DISPLAY
WHEN A = 15
PERFORM A-IS-15
WHEN B IS EQUAL 6
PERFORM B-IS-6
WHEN C IS GREATER THAN 5
DISPLAY "C > 5" END-DISPLAY
WHEN OTHER
DISPLAY "Default imperative" END-DISPLAY
END-EVALUATE
A DATA division section. Unless BASED, all fields are allocated and fixed in memory (for the running program within a module).
Record write. Unlike READ that uses filenames syntax, WRITE uses record buffer syntax which must be related to the file through the FD file descriptor. OpenCOBOL supports LINAGE and WRITE has support for ‘report’ paging and line control.
WRITE record-buff END-WRITE
WRITE record-name-1 AFTER ADVANCING PAGE END-WRITE.
WRITE record-name-1
AT END-OF-PAGE
DISPLAY "EOP" END-DISPLAY
END-WRITE
Modifies ACCEPT var FROM DAY to use full 4 digit year for the Julian date retrieval.
ACCEPT date-var FROM DAY YYYYDDD
Modifies ACCEPT var FROM DATE to use full 4 digit year.
ACCEPT date-var FROM DATE YYYYMMDD
Figurative and numeric constant for the value 0.
Plural of ZERO.
Alternate spelling for ZEROES.
Yes, many. As of the July 2008 1.1 pre-release
ABS, ACOS, ANNUITY, ASIN, ATAN, BYTE-LENGTH, CHAR, CONCATENATE, COS,
CURRENT-DATE, DATE-OF-INTEGER, DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD, DAY-OF-INTEGER,
DAY-TO-YYYYDDD, E, EXCEPTION-FILE, EXCEPTION-LOCATION, EXCEPTION-STATEMENT,
EXCEPTION-STATUS, EXP, EXP10, FACTORIAL, FRACTION-PART, INTEGER,
INTEGER-OF-DATE, INTEGER-OF-DAY, INTEGER-PART, LENGTH, LOCALE-DATE,
LOCALE-TIME, LOG, LOG10, LOWER-CASE, MAX, MEAN, MEDIAN, MIDRANGE, MIN, MOD,
NUMVAL, NUMVAL-C, ORD, ORD-MAX, ORD-MIN, PI, PRESENT-VALUE, RANDOM, RANGE, REM,
REVERSE, SECONDS-FROM-FORMATTED-TIME, SECONDS-PAST-MIDNIGHT, SIGN, SIN, SQRT,
STANDARD-DEVIATION, STORED-CHAR-LENGTH, SUBSTITUTE, SUBSTITUTE-CASE, SUM, TAN,
TEST-DATE-YYYYMMDD, TEST-DAY-YYYYDDD, TRIM, UPPER-CASE, VARIANCE,
WHEN-COMPILED, YEAR-TO-YYYY
The ACOS function returns a numeric value (in radians) that approximates the arccosine of the argument.
The domain of the arccosine function is -1 to +1. Domain errors return a result of 0. The inverse cosine function returns a range of 0 thru π
DISPLAY FUNCTION ACOS(-1).
Compute the ratio of an annuity paid based on arguments of interest and number of periods.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
77 INTEREST PIC S9V9999 VALUE 0.08.
77 MONTHLY PIC S9V9999 VALUE ZERO.
77 PERIODS PIC 99 VALUE 36.
77 ANNUITY-VALUE PIC S9V9999 VALUE ZERO.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
COMPUTE MONTHLY ROUNDED = INTEREST / 12
COMPUTE ANNUITY-VALUE ROUNDED =
FUNCTION ANNUITY (MONTHLY PERIODS)
DISPLAY "Monthly rate: " MONTHLY
" Periods: " PERIODS
" Annuity ratio: " ANNUITY-VALUE
END-DISPLAY.
Outputs:
Monthly rate: +0.0067 Periods: 36 Annuity ratio: +0.0314
The ASIN function returns a numeric value (in radians) that approximates the arcsine of the argument.
The domain of the arcsine function is -1 to +1. Domain errors return a result of 0. The inverse sine function returns a range of -π/2 thru π/2
DISPLAY FUNCTION ASIN(-1).
The ATAN function returns a numeric value (in radians) that approximates the arctangent of the argument.
The domain of the arctangent function is all real numbers. The inverse tangent function returns a range of -π/2 thru π/2
DISPLAY FUNCTION ATAN(1).
The BYTE-LENGTH function returns an integer that is the internal storage length of the given argument.
COBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
******************************************************************
* Purpose: demonstrate intrinsic FUNCTION BYTE-LENGTH
******************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. bytelength.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 char-var usage binary-char.
01 short-var usage binary-short.
01 long-var usage binary-long.
01 double-var usage binary-double.
01 num1-var pic 9.
01 num4-var pic 99v99.
01 num9-var pic s9(9).
01 num18-var pic s9(18).
01 num18c-var pic s9(18) usage comp.
01 num18p-var pic s9(18) usage comp-3.
01 edit-var pic $zzzz9.99.
01 string-var pic x(10) value "abc".
01 newline pic x value x'0a'.
procedure division.
display
"num1-var len = " function byte-length(num1-var) newline
"num4-var len = " function byte-length(num4-var) newline
"num9-var len = " function byte-length(num9-var) newline
"num18-var len = " function byte-length(num18-var) newline
"num18c-var len = " function byte-length(num18c-var) newline
"num18p-var len = " function byte-length(num18p-var) newline
"edit-var len = " function byte-length(edit-var) newline
"12 len = " function byte-length(12) newline
"12.12 len = " function byte-length(12.12) newline
"1234567890.123 = " function
byte-length(1234567890.123) newline
"string-var len = " function byte-length(string-var) newline
"trim string = " function
byte-length(function trim(string-var)) newline
"char-var len = " function byte-length(char-var) newline
"short-var len = " function byte-length(short-var) newline
"long-var len = " function byte-length(long-var) newline
"double-var len = " function byte-length(double-var)
end-display
goback.
exit program.
Outputs:
num1-var len = 1
num4-var len = 4
num9-var len = 9
num18-var len = 18
num18c-var len = 8
num18p-var len = 10
edit-var len = 9
12 len = 2
12.12 len = 4
1234567890.123 = 13
string-var len = 10
trim string = 00000003
char-var len = 1
short-var len = 2
long-var len = 4
double-var len = 8
The CHAR function returns a ONE character alphanumeric field whose value is the character in the current collating sequence having the ordinal position equal to the value of the integer argument. The argument must be greater than 0 and less than or equal to the number of positions in the collating sequence. Errors in the argument range return 0 (the LOW-VALUE by default).
See ASCII or EBCDIC and details of the ALPHABET clause.
DISPLAY FUNCTION CHAR(66).
Would output A in the ASCII character set. Note this may be different than what some expect. OpenCOBOL CHAR is 1 thru 128 not 0 thru 127 as a C programmer may be used to.
And to add a little confusion, most personal computers use an extended character set, usually erroneously called ASCII with a range of 0 to 255. A more appropriate name may be ISO-8859-1 Latin 1. See ASCII for more accurate details. This author is often guilty of this misnomer of the use of the term ASCII.
Returns a common datetime form from integer date (years and days from 1600 to 10000) and numeric time arguments (seconds in day). Date should be from 1 to 3067671 and time should be from 1 to 86400. The character string returned is in the form 7.5.
DISPLAY FUNCTION COMBINED-DATETIME(1; 1) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
0000001.00001
Concatenate the given fields. CONCATENATE is an OpenCOBOL extension.
MOVE "COBOL" TO stringvar
MOVE FUNCTION CONCATENATE("Open"; stringvar) TO goodsystem
DISPLAY goodsystem END-DISPLAY
The COS function returns a numeric value that approximates the cosine of the argument (in radians).
The domain of the cosine function is all real numbers, with a nominal domain of 0 thru π with a zero returned at π/2. The cosine function returns a range of -1 thru +1.
DISPLAY FUNCTION COS(1.5707963267949).
Returns an alphanumeric field of length 21 with the current date, time and timezone information in the form YYYYMMDDhhmmsscc±tznn
DISPLAY FUNCTION CURRENT-DATE.
Example Output:
2008080921243796-0400
Converts an integer date, days on the Gregorian since December 31 1600 to YYYYMMDD form
DISPLAY DATE-OF-INTEGER(1)
DISPLAY DATE-OF-INTEGER(50000)
Outputs:
16010101
17371123
50,000 days after December 31, 1600 being November 23rd, 1737.
Converts a two digit year date format to four digit year form using a sliding window pivot of the optional second argument. The pivot defaults to 50.
The OpenCOBOL implementation of DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD also accepts an optional third argument, replacing the default century value of 1900 and is treated as the years added to the given year portion of the first argument and modified by the sliding 100 window pivot.
Domain errors occur for year values less than 1600 and greater than 999,999. There is no validation of the input date.
Because of the sliding window, this function is dependent on the date of evaluation
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(000101)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(500101)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(610101)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(990101)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(990101, 50, 1900)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(990101, -10, 1900)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(990101, 50, 2000)
DISPLAY FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD(990101, 50, 2100)
When run in August, 2008 produces:
20000101
20500101
19610101
19990101
18990101
17990101
19990101
20990101
Converts a Gregorian integer date form to Julian date form (YYYDDD) based on days since December 31, 1600. Errors return 0
DISPLAY FUNCTION DAY-OF-INTEGER(97336).
1867182
97,336 days after 16001231 being the 182nd day of the year 1867. Canada’s date of Confederation and recognized birthday.
Converts a Julian 2 digit year and three digit dat integer to a four digit year form. See FUNCTION DATE-TO-YYYYMMDD for some of the details of the calculations involved.
Returns Euler’s number as an alphanumeric field to 34 digits of accuracy after the decimal. E forms the base of the natural logarithms. It has very unique and important properies such as:
DISPLAY FUNCTION E END-DISPLAY
outputs:
2.7182818284590452353602874713526625
A small graph to show the magic area.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 29-May-2009, Modified 20110505 to add e tic mark
*> Purpose: Plot Euler's number (using integral of 1 over x)
*> Tectonics: requires access to gnuplot. http://www.gnuplot.info
*> cobc -Wall -x ploteuler.cob
*> OVERWRITES ocgenplot.gp, ocgpdata.txt and images/euler.png
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. ploteuler.
environment division.
input-output section.
file-control.
select scriptfile
assign to "ocgenplot.gp"
organization is line sequential.
select outfile
assign to "ocgpdata.txt"
organization is line sequential.
data division.
file section.
fd scriptfile.
01 gnuplot-command pic x(82).
fd outfile.
01 outrec.
03 x-value pic -z9.999.
03 filler pic x.
03 y-value pic -z9.999.
working-storage section.
01 xstep pic 9v99999.
01 x pic 9v99999.
01 recip pic 9v99999.
*> The plot command is xrange 0:3, y 0:2 data col 1 for x 2 for y
01 gpcmds pic x(400) value is
"set style fill solid 1.0; " &
"set grid; " &
"set xtics add ('e' 2.718281); " &
"plot [0:3] [0:2] 'ocgpdata.txt' using 1:2 \ " &
" with filledcurves below x1 title '1/x'; " &
"set terminal png; " &
"set output 'images/euler.png'; " &
"replot ".
01 line-cnt pic 999.
01 gptable.
05 gpcmd pic x(50) occurs 8 times.
01 gplot pic x(40) value is 'gnuplot -persist ocgenplot.gp'.
01 result pic s9(9).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
display function e end-display
*><* Create the script to plot the area of Euler's number
open output scriptfile.
move gpcmds to gptable
perform varying line-cnt from 1 by 1 until line-cnt > 8
move gpcmd(line-cnt) to gnuplot-command
write gnuplot-command end-write
end-perform
close scriptfile
*><* Create the reciprocal data
open output outfile
move spaces to outrec
compute xstep = function e / 100 end-compute
perform
with test after
varying x from 1 by xstep
until x >= function e
if x > function e
move function e to x-value
else
move x to x-value
end-if
compute recip = 1 / x end-compute
move recip to y-value
write outrec end-write
end-perform
close outfile
*><* Invoke gnuplot
call "SYSTEM" using gplot returning result end-call
if result not = 0
display "Problem: " result end-display
stop run returning result
end-if
goback.
end program ploteuler.
The area in red is exactly 1. Well, not on this plot exactly, as it is somewhat sloppy with the xstep end case and the precisions.
See Can OpenCOBOL be used for plotting? for some details on plotting.
This special-register holds the error number and name of the source file that caused an input output exception. See FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS for an example.
This special-register can be queried for the location of the last exception. See FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS for example source code. Note: This feature requires compilation with -fsource-location compiler switch. This option is also turned on with -g and -debug debugging info compiles. Information includes PROGRAM-ID, section and source line.
This special-register holds the statement that was executing when the latest exception was raised. See FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS for an example. Note: This feature requires compilation with -fsource-location compiler switch. This option is also turned on with -g debugging info compiles.
This FUNCTION returns the current exception status. The example below is courtesy of Roger While, from a post he made announcing the FUNCTION EXCEPTION- features.
Source format is free, compile with cobc -x -g -free except.cob
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. MINIPROG.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SOURCE-COMPUTER. LINUX.
OBJECT-COMPUTER. LINUX.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT PRINTFILE ASSIGN TO "XXRXWXX"
FILE STATUS RXWSTAT.
DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD PRINTFILE.
01 PRINTREC PIC X(132).
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 RXWSTAT PIC XX.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
A00-MAIN SECTION.
001-MAIN-PROCEDURE.
OPEN INPUT PRINTFILE.
DISPLAY "File Status: " RXWSTAT.
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-FILE: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-FILE.
DISPLAY "Return Length: "
FUNCTION LENGTH (FUNCTION EXCEPTION-FILE).
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS.
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATEMENT.
STRING "TOOLONG" DELIMITED SIZE INTO RXWSTAT.
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS.
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATEMENT.
DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-LOCATION: " FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION.
STOP RUN.
Example output:
File Status: 35
EXCEPTION-FILE: 35PRINTFILE
Return Length: 00000011
EXCEPTION-STATUS: EC-I-O-PERMANENT-ERROR
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: OPEN
EXCEPTION-STATUS: EC-OVERFLOW-STRING
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: STRING
EXCEPTION-LOCATION: MINIPROG; 001-MAIN-PROCEDURE OF A00-MAIN; 29
Tip
See the source file libcob/exception.def for a list of the plethora of run-time exceptions supported by OpenCOBOL.
Returns an approximation of Euler’s number (see FUNCTION E) raised to the power of the numeric argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION EXP(1) END-DISPLAY
outputs:
2.718281828459045091
Note
Be aware that this approximation seems accurate to “only” 15 decimal places. Diligent programmers need to be aware of the foibles of floating point mathematics and take these issues into consideration.
Returns an approximation of the value 10 raised to the power of the numeric argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION EXP10(1.0) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION EXP10(1.2) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION EXP10(10) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
10.000000000000000000
15.848931924611132871
10000000000.000000000000000000
Computes the factorial of the integral argument. Valid Range of 0 to 19 with a domain of 1 to 121645100408832000.
OCOBOL*> ***************************************************************
*> Program to find range and domain of FUNCTION FACTORIAL
identification division.
program-id. fact.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 ind pic 999.
01 result pic 9(18).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
perform varying ind from 0 by 1 until ind > 20
add zero to function factorial(ind) giving result
on size error
display "overflow at " ind end-display
end-add
display ind " = " function factorial(ind) end-display
end-perform
goback.
end program fact.
Outputs:
000 = 000000000000000001
001 = 000000000000000001
002 = 000000000000000002
003 = 000000000000000006
004 = 000000000000000024
005 = 000000000000000120
006 = 000000000000000720
007 = 000000000000005040
008 = 000000000000040320
009 = 000000000000362880
010 = 000000000003628800
011 = 000000000039916800
012 = 000000000479001600
013 = 000000006227020800
014 = 000000087178291200
015 = 000001307674368000
016 = 000020922789888000
017 = 000355687428096000
018 = 006402373705728000
019 = 121645100408832000
overflow at 020
020 = 432902008176640000
Kind of the same thing, with some zero out formatting.
OCOBOL*> ***************************************************************
*> Program to find range and domain of FUNCTION FACTORIAL
identification division.
program-id. fact.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 ind pic 99.
01 z-ind pic z9.
01 result pic 9(18).
01 pretty-result pic z(17)9.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
perform varying ind from 0 by 1 until ind > 21
add zero to function factorial(ind) giving result
on size error
display
"overflow at " ind ", result undefined: "
function factorial(ind)
end-display
not on size error
move ind to z-ind
move result to pretty-result
display
"factorial(" z-ind ") = " pretty-result
end-display
end-add
end-perform
goback.
end program fact.
Which outputs:
factorial( 0) = 1
factorial( 1) = 1
factorial( 2) = 2
factorial( 3) = 6
factorial( 4) = 24
factorial( 5) = 120
factorial( 6) = 720
factorial( 7) = 5040
factorial( 8) = 40320
factorial( 9) = 362880
factorial(10) = 3628800
factorial(11) = 39916800
factorial(12) = 479001600
factorial(13) = 6227020800
factorial(14) = 87178291200
factorial(15) = 1307674368000
factorial(16) = 20922789888000
factorial(17) = 355687428096000
factorial(18) = 6402373705728000
factorial(19) = 121645100408832000
overflow at 20, result undefined, 432902008176640000
overflow at 21, result undefined, 197454024290336768
Returns a numeric value that is the fraction part of the argument. Keeping the sign.
DISPLAY FUNCTION FRACTION-PART(FUNCTION E) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION FRACTION-PART(-1.5) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION FRACTION-PART(-1.0) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION FRACTION-PART(1) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+.718281828459045235
-.500000000000000000
+.000000000000000000
+.000000000000000000
Returns the greatest integer less than or equal to the numeric argument.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER (-3) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER (-3.141)
END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER (3) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER (3.141)
END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER (-0.3141) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER (0.3141) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER (0)
END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
-000000000000000003 -000000000000000004
+000000000000000003 +000000000000000003
-000000000000000001 +000000000000000000 +000000000000000000
Note the -4, greatest integer less than or equal to the argument.
Converts a date in the Gregorian calender to an integer form. Expects a numeric argument in the form YYYYMMDD based on years greater than or equal to 1601 and less than 10000. Month values range from 1 to 12. Days range from 1 to 31 and should be valud for the specified month and year. Invalid input returns unpredictable results and sets the exception EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION to exist. See FUNCTION DATE-OF-INTEGER for the converse function.
Converts a Julian date of YYYYDDD to integer date form. See FUNCTION DAY-OF-INTEGER for the converse intrinsic function. Invalid arguments return an undefined result and set the exception EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION to exist.
Returns the integer part of the numeric argument. Similar to FUNCTION INTEGER but returns different values for negative arguments.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (-3) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (-3.141)
END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (3) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (3.141)
END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (-0.3141) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (0.3141) SPACE
FUNCTION INTEGER-PART (0)
END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
-000000000000000003 -000000000000000003
+000000000000000003 +000000000000000003
+000000000000000000 +000000000000000000 +000000000000000000
Returns an integer that is the length in character positions of the given argument.
working storage.
01 nat pic n(10).
01 cha pic x(10).
01 bin constant as h'ff'.
01 num pic s9(8)v9(8).
01 form pic $-z(7)9.9(8).
procedure division.
display
function length(nat) space
function length(cha) space
function length(bin)
end-display
display
function length(num) space
function length(form)
end-display
Outputs:
20 10 3
16 19
Returns a culturally appropriate date given an alphanumeric of 8 character positions in the form “YYYYMMDD” and an optional locale name that has been associted with a locale in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale for a start at the very detail rich computational requirements of LOCALE.
Will set EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION to exist for invalid input.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20120116
*> Purpose: Demonstrate locale functions
*> Tectonics: cobc -x locales.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. locales.
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
procedure division.
*> Display cultural norm date and times as set in environment.
*> Google LC_ALL.
*> 20120622 represents June 22 2012
*> 141516 represents 2pm (14th hour), 15 minutes, 16 seconds
*> 39600 represents 11 hours in seconds
display locale-date(20120622) end-display
display locale-time(141516) end-display
display locale-time-from-seconds(39600) end-display
goback.
end program locales.
Which produced:
[btiffin@home cobol]$ cobc -x locales.cob
[btiffin@home cobol]$ ./locales
06/22/2012
02:15:16 PM
11:00:00 AM
I live in Canada, but usually run Fedora with LANG=en_US.utf8
and so
[btiffin@home cobol]$ export LANG='en_CA.utf8'
[btiffin@home cobol]$ ./locales
22/06/12
02:15:16 PM
11:00:00 AM
Boo, day month year form. Sad, 2 digit year? What kinda backwater land do I live in? Time to write strongly worded letters to some committees. :)
I just looked, and it seems Canada is listed as DD/MM/YY; I’m moving to Germany.
[btiffin@home cobol]$ export LANG=en_DK.utf8
[btiffin@home cobol]$ ./locales
2012-06-22
14:15:16
11:00:00
Joy. year month day. Hmm, what about Hong Kong?
[btiffin@home cobol]$ LANG=en_HK.utf8 ./locales
Sunday, June 22, 2012
02:15:16 EST
11:00:00 EST
Nice.
If you want to run your system through its locales, try
$ locs=( $(locale -a) )
$ for l in ${locs[@]}; do echo $l; LANG=$l ./locales; done
and expect some unicode in the output.
Oh, and along with FUNCTION EXCEPTION-STATUS you can detect invalid arguments.
000100 >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
000200*> ***************************************************************
000300*> Author: Brian Tiffin
000400*> Date: 20120116
000500*> Purpose: Demonstrate locale function invalid arguments
000600*> Tectonics: cobc -x -g -debug locales.cob
000700*> ***************************************************************
000800 identification division.
000900 program-id. locales.
001000
001100 environment division.
001200 configuration section.
001300 repository.
001400 function all intrinsic.
001500
001600*> -*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-*********-**
001700 procedure division.
001800
001900*> Display cultural norm date and times as set in environment.
002000*> Google LC_ALL.
002100*> 20120622 represents June 22 2012
002200*> 141516 represents 2pm (14th hour), 15 minutes, 16 seconds
002300*> 39600 represents 11 hours in seconds
002400
002500 display locale-date(20120622) end-display
002600 display locale-time(141516) end-display
002700 display locale-time-from-seconds(39600) end-display
002800
002900*> invalid arguments are detected through EXCEPTION-STATUS
003000 display locale-date(20120699) end-display
003100 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " EXCEPTION-STATUS
003200 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " EXCEPTION-STATEMENT
003300 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-LOCATION: " EXCEPTION-LOCATION
003400
003500 display locale-time(941516) end-display
003600 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATUS: " EXCEPTION-STATUS
003700 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: " EXCEPTION-STATEMENT
003800 DISPLAY "EXCEPTION-LOCATION: " EXCEPTION-LOCATION
003900
004000 display locale-time-from-seconds(-39600) end-display
004100
004200 goback.
004300 end program locales.
giving:
$ ./locales
06/22/2012
02:15:16 PM
11:00:00 AM
EXCEPTION-STATUS: EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: DISPLAY
EXCEPTION-LOCATION: locales; MAIN PARAGRAPH OF MAIN SECTION; 30
EXCEPTION-STATUS: EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION
EXCEPTION-STATEMENT: DISPLAY
EXCEPTION-LOCATION: locales; MAIN PARAGRAPH OF MAIN SECTION; 35
-11:00:00 AM
Returns a culturally appropriate date given an alphanumeric of 6 character positions in the form “HHMMSS” and an optional locale name that has been associted with a locale in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale for a start at the very detail rich computational requirements of LOCALE.
Will set EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION to exist for invalid input.
See FUNCTION LOCALE-DATE.
Returns a culturally appropriate date given an alphanumeric number of seconds and an optional locale name that has been associted with a locale in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale for a start at the very detail rich computational requirements of LOCALE.
Will set EC-ARGUMENT-FUNCTION to exist for invalid input.
See FUNCTION LOCALE-DATE.
Returns an approximation of the natural logarithmic value of the given numeric argument. Uses a base of FUNCTION E.
DISPLAY FUNCTION LOG(100) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION LOG(FUNCTION E) END-DISPLAY
gives:
4.60517018598809137
000000001
Returns an approximation of the base-10 logarithmic value of the given numeric argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION LOG10(100) END-DISPLAY
gives:
000000002
Convert any uppercase character values (A-Z) in the argument to lowercase (a-z).
Returns the maximum value from the list of arguments.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MAX ( "def"; "abc";) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION MAX ( 123.1; 123.11; 123) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
def
123.11
Returns the arithmetic mean (average) of the list of numeric arguments.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MEAN(1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+5.00000000000000000
Returns the middle value of the arguments formed by arranging the list in sorted order.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MEDIAN(1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
5
Returns the arithmetic mean (average) of the minimum and maximum argument from the list of numeric arguments.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MIDRANGE(1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
5.000000000000000000
Returns the minimum value from the list of arguments.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MIN ( "def"; "abc";) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION MIN ( 123.1; 123.11; 123) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
abc
123
Returns an integer value of that is the first-argument modulo second-argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION MOD(123; 23) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+000000000000000008
Returns the numeric value represented by the character string argument.
OCOBOL IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 X PIC X(12) VALUE " -9876.1234 ".
01 F PIC X(12) VALUE "B-9876.1234 ".
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY FUNCTION NUMVAL ( X )
DISPLAY FUNCTION NUMVAL ( F )
END-DISPLAY.
STOP RUN.
gives:
-09876.1234
000000000
The “B” in field F, breaks the numeric conversion. NUMVAL is actually fairly complicated and forgiving of inputs, but will return 0 on invalid numeric conversions.
OpenCOBOL 2 will also provide FUNCTION TEST-NUMVAL.
Returns the numeric value represented by the culturally appropriate currency specification argument.
OCOBOL IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 X PIC X(14) VALUE " % -9876.1234 ".
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
DISPLAY FUNCTION NUMVAL-C ( X , "%" )
END-DISPLAY.
STOP RUN.
gives:
-09876.1234
in a LOCALE that uses the percent sign as a currency symbol.
OpenCOBOL 2 will also provide FUNCTION TEST-NUMVAL-C.
Returns the integer value that is the ordinal position of the character argument in the program’s collating sequence. COBOL uses 1 as the lowest ordinal for character sequencing.
DISPLAY FUNCTION ORD("J") END-DISPLAY
Outputs (on an ASCII system with no ALPHABET clause):
00000075
Note that COBOL uses 1 as the first value for collating. So ASCII 74 is ORD 75 for “J”.
Returns the integer that is the ordinal position of the maximum value of the given argument list.
DISPLAY ORD-MAX(9; 8; 7; 6; 5; 4; 3; 2; 1) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY ORD-MAX('abc'; 'def'; 'ghi') END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
00000001
00000003
Returns the integer that is the ordinal position of the minimum value from the argument list.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20090531
*> Purpose: Demonstration of FUNCTION ORD-MIN and REPOSITORY
*> Tectonics: cobc -x ordmin.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. ordmin.
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
function all intrinsic.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 posmin pic 9(8).
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
move ord-min (9; 8; 7; 6; 5; 4; 3; 2; 1; 2; 3; 4; 5) to posmin
display posmin end-display
move ord-min ("abc"; "def"; "000"; "def"; "abc") to posmin
display posmin end-display
goback.
end program ordmin.
Outputs:
00000009
00000003
Notice how ord-min did not require FUNCTION, as the REPOSITORY entry allows this to be skipped in the source codes.
Returns an approximation of the ratio of the circumference by the diameter of a circle. It returns an alphanumeric with 34 digits after the decimal. Please be aware of the limitations of using these types of approximated values in computations.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20101030
*> Purpose: Demonstrate PI
*> Tectonics: cobc -x pi-demo.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. pi-demo.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 args pic x(80).
01 diameter pic 999 value 1.
01 show-diameter pic zz9.
01 circumference usage float-long.
01 plural pic xx.
01 plural-length pic 9 value 1.
01 newline pic x value x'0a'.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
accept args from command-line end-accept
if args not equal spaces
move args to diameter
end-if
if diameter not equal 1
move "s " to plural
move 2 to plural-length
else
move " " to plural
move 1 to plural-length
end-if
move diameter to show-diameter
display "FUNCTION PI is " function pi newline end-display
compute circumference = function pi * diameter end-compute
display
"A wheel, " show-diameter " metre" plural(1:plural-length)
"wide will roll, very close to but only approximately, "
newline circumference " metres in ONE full rotation."
newline
end-display
goback.
end program pi-demo.
Outputs:
$ cobc -x pi-demo.cob && ./pi-demo && ./pi-demo 42
FUNCTION PI is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795029
A wheel, 1 metre wide will roll, very close to but only approximately,
3.14159265358979312 metres in ONE full rotation.
FUNCTION PI is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795029
A wheel, 42 metres wide will roll, very close to but only approximately,
131.946891450771318 metres in ONE full rotation.
Returns an approximation of the present value from a discount rate and list of future period end amounts. It attempts to reflect the future value of $1.00 given time, inflation and interest.
OCOBOL >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FIXED
*> ***************************************************************
*> Author: Brian Tiffin
*> Date: 20101030
*> Purpose: Demo of PRESENT-VALUE
*> Tectonics: cobc -x present-value-demo.cob
*> ***************************************************************
identification division.
program-id. present-value-demo.
data division.
working-storage section.
01 args pic x(80).
01 newline pic x value x'0a'.
01 rate pic s9v9999 value 0.7000.
01 the-value pic s9(6)v99.
*> ***************************************************************
procedure division.
accept args from command-line end-accept
if args not equal to spaces
move args to rate
end-if
compute the-value rounded =
function present-value(rate; 1000, 1010, 1000, 1100)
end-compute
display
"A discount rate of " rate " gives a PRESENT-VALUE of "
the-value " given" newline
"end-amounts of 1000, 1010, 1000 and 1100"
end-display
compute the-value rounded =
function present-value(rate; 1000, 1000, 1000, 1000)
end-compute
display
"A discount rate of " rate " gives a PRESENT-VALUE of "
the-value " given" newline
"end-amounts of 1000, 1000, 1000 and 1000"
end-display
goback.
end program present-value-demo.
Outputs:
$ ./present-value-demo
A discount rate of +0.7000 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +001272.96 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1010, 1000 and 1100
A discount rate of +0.7000 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +001257.53 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1000, 1000 and 1000
$ ./present-value-demo 0.333
A discount rate of +0.3330 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +002089.18 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1010, 1000 and 1100
A discount rate of +0.3330 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +002051.88 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1000, 1000 and 1000
$ ./present-value-demo 0.935
A discount rate of +0.9350 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +001003.03 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1010, 1000 and 1100
A discount rate of +0.9350 gives a PRESENT-VALUE of +000993.23 given
end-amounts of 1000, 1000, 1000 and 1000
For details, talk to a professional.
rant Any COBOL programmer using financial functions for use by others HAS to attain some level of domain expertise in the mathematics at work, as well as a level of technical competence to read through and defend both the COBOL source code and the generated C code that OpenCOBOL emits before compiling. rant over
Returns a pseudo-random number given a numeric seed value as argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION RANDOM(1) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION RANDOM(1) END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY FUNCTION RANDOM() END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+00000000.1804289383
+00000000.1804289383
+000000000.846930886
Returns the value of the minimum argument subtracted from the maximum argument from the list of numeric arguments.
DISPLAY FUNCTION RANGE(1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+000000000000000008
Returns the numeric remainder of the first argument divided by the second.
DISPLAY FUNCTION REM(123; 23) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
+000000000000000008
Returns the reverse of the given character string.
DISPLAY FUNCTION REVERSE("abc") END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
cba
This function converts a time that is in a specified format to a numeric value representing the number of seconds after midnight.
OCOBOL IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. prog.
DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 X PIC X(6) VALUE "hhmmss".
01 Y PIC 9(8) COMP-5.
01 Z PIC X(6) VALUE "010203".
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
MOVE FUNCTION SECONDS-FROM-FORMATTED-TIME (X, Z) TO Y.
IF Y NOT = 3723
DISPLAY Y
END-DISPLAY
END-IF.
STOP RUN.
This test would fail if 01:02:03 was not returned as 3723 seconds past midnight.
Argumenent 1 takes the form hhmmss and expectes argument 2 to be a matching length numeric item, or 0 is returned.
Returns the seconds past midnight from the current system time.
Returns +1 for positive, 0 for zero and -1 for a negative numeric argument.
Returns an approximation for the trigonometric sine of the given numeric angle (expressed in radians) argument. See Can OpenCOBOL be used for plotting? for a sample graph using gnuplot.
Returns an approximation of the square root of the given numeric argument.
DISPLAY FUNCTION SQRT(-1) END-DISPLAY
CALL "perror" USING NULL END-CALL
DISPLAY FUNCTION SQRT(2) END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
0.000000000000000000
Numerical argument out of domain
1.414213562373095145
Note: CALL “perror” reveals a bug in OpenCOBOL versions packaged before June 2009 where the stack will evetually underflow due to improper handling of the void return specification. Versions supporting RETURNING NULL fix this problem. An actual application that needed to verify the results of square roots or other numerical function would be better off placing a small C wrapper to set and get the global errno.
Returns an approximation of the standard deviation from the given list of numeric arguments.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION STANDARD-DEVIATION(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) SPACE
FUNCTION STANDARD-DEVIATION(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100)
END-DISPLAY
2.872281323269014308 28.605069480775604518
Returns the numeric value of the internal storage length of the given argument in bytes, not counting spaces.
FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE is an OpenCOBOL extension to the suite of intrinsic functions.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE("this is a test",
"this", "that",
"is a", "was",
"test", "very cool!")
END-DISPLAY
Will display:
that was very cool!
having changed this for that, is a for was and test with very cool!
The new intrinsic accepts:
SUBSTITUTE(subject, lit-pat-1, repl-1 [, litl-pat-2, repl-2, ...])
where lit-pat just means the scan is for literals, not that you have to use literal constants. WORKING-STORAGE identifiers are fine for any of the subject, the search patterns or the replacements.
As with all intrinsics, you receive a new field and the subject is untouched.
Note
The resulting field can be shorter, the same length or longer than the subject string.
This is literal character global find and replace, and there are no wildcards or other pattern expressions. Unlike INSPECT, this function does not require same length patterns and replacements. Each pattern replacement pair uses the original subject, not any intermediate in progress result.
As this is an alphanumeric operation, a reference modification is also allowed
MOVE FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE(subject, pat, repl)(2:4) TO xvar4
to result in 4 characters starting at the second position after the substitution.
Similar to SUBSTITUTE, but ignores upper and lower case of subject when matching patterns.
Returns the numeric value that is the sum of the given list of numeric arguments.
Returns an approximation for the trigonometric tangent of the given numeric angle (expressed in radians) argument. Returns ZERO if the argument would cause an infinity or other size error.
Test for valid date in numeric yyyymmdd form.
Test for valid date in numeric yyyyddd form.
Returns a character string that is the argument trimmed of spaces. Defaults to trimming both ends, but can be passed LEADING or TRAILING qualifier arguments.
DISPLAY '"' FUNCTION TRIM(" abc ") '"' END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY '"' FUNCTION TRIM(" abc " LEADING) '"' END-DISPLAY
DISPLAY '"' FUNCTION TRIM(" abc " TRAILING) '"' END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
"abc"
"abc "
" abc"
Returns a copy of the alphanumeric argument with any lower case letters replaced by upper case letters.
DISPLAY FUNCTION UPPER-CASE("# 123 abc DEF #") END-DISPLAY
Outputs:
# 123 ABC DEF #
Returns the variance of a series of numbers. The variance is defined as the square of the FUNCTION STANDARD-DEVIATION
DISPLAY FUNCTION VARIANCE(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100) END-DISPLAY.
+818.250000000000000
Returns a 21 character alphanumeric field of the form YYYYMMDDhhmmsscc±zzzz e.g. 2008070505152000-0400 representing when a module or executable is compiled. The WHEN-COMPILED special register reflects when an object module was compiled
program-id. whenpart1. procedure division.
display "First part :" FUNCTION WHEN-COMPILED end-display.
program-id. whenpart2. procedure division.
display "Second part:" FUNCTION WHEN-COMPILED end-display.
program-id. whenshow. procedure division.
call "whenpart1" end-call.
call "whenpart2" end-call.
display "Main part :" FUNCTION WHEN-COMPILED end-display.
For a test
$ cobc -c whenpart1.cob && sleep 15 && cobc -c whenpart2.cob &&
> sleep 15 && cobc -x whenshow.cob whenpart1.o whenpart2.o
$ ./whenshow
gives:
First part :2008082721391500-0400
Second part:2008082721393000-0400
Main part :2008082721394500-0400
Converts a two digit year to a sliding window four digit year. The optional second argument (default 50) is added to the date at execution time to determine the ending year of a 100 year interval.
Yes. This information is from [Roger], posted to the opencobol forums.
Just to clarify the use of FUNCTION.
(Applies to 0.33)
FUNCTION (generally speaking, there are exceptions) can
be used anywhere where a source item is valid.
It always results in a new temporary field.
This will have the desired characteristics dependant
on the parameters.
eg. FUNCTION MIN (x, y, z)
with x PIC 99
y PIC 9(8) COMP
z PIC 9(6)V99
will result in returning a field that has
at least 8 positions before the (implied) decimal
point and 2 after.
It does NOT ever change the contents of parameters
to the function.
FUNCTION's are nestable.
eg.
DISPLAY FUNCTION REVERSE (FUNCTION UPPER-CASE (myfield)).
One clarification to the above quote was pointed out by Roger. The line:
be used anywhere where a source item is valid.
should be:
be used anywhere where a sending field is valid.
From [Roger]:
The standard only defines FUNCTION LENGTH.
The LENGTH OF phrase is an extension (from MF)
OpenCOBOL 1.0 ships with quite a few callable features. See CALL. Looking through the source code, you’ll find the current list of service calls in:
libcob/system.def
With the 1.1 pre-release of July 2008, that list included
/* COB_SYSTEM_GEN (external name, number of parameters, internal name) */
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("SYSTEM", 1, SYSTEM)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_ERROR_PROC", 2, CBL_ERROR_PROC)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_EXIT_PROC", 2, CBL_EXIT_PROC)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_OPEN_FILE", 5, CBL_OPEN_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_CREATE_FILE", 5, CBL_CREATE_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_READ_FILE", 5, CBL_READ_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_WRITE_FILE", 5, CBL_WRITE_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_CLOSE_FILE", 1, CBL_CLOSE_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_FLUSH_FILE", 1, CBL_FLUSH_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_DELETE_FILE", 1, CBL_DELETE_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_COPY_FILE", 2, CBL_COPY_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST", 2, CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_RENAME_FILE", 2, CBL_RENAME_FILE)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR", 3, CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_CHANGE_DIR", 1, CBL_CHANGE_DIR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_CREATE_DIR", 1, CBL_CREATE_DIR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_DELETE_DIR", 1, CBL_DELETE_DIR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_AND", 3, CBL_AND)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_OR", 3, CBL_OR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_NOR", 3, CBL_NOR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_XOR", 3, CBL_XOR)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_IMP", 3, CBL_IMP)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_NIMP", 3, CBL_NIMP)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_EQ", 3, CBL_EQ)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_NOT", 2, CBL_NOT)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_TOUPPER", 2, CBL_TOUPPER)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_TOLOWER", 2, CBL_TOLOWER)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("\364", 2, CBL_XF4)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("\365", 2, CBL_XF5)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("\221", 2, CBL_X91)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$NARG", 1, cob_return_args)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$PARAMSIZE", 1, cob_parameter_size)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$MAKEDIR", 1, cob_acuw_mkdir)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$CHDIR", 2, cob_acuw_chdir)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$SLEEP", 1, cob_acuw_sleep)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$COPY", 3, cob_acuw_copyfile)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$FILEINFO", 2, cob_acuw_file_info)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$DELETE", 2, cob_acuw_file_delete)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$TOUPPER", 2, CBL_TOUPPER)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$TOLOWER", 2, CBL_TOLOWER)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("C$JUSTIFY", 1, cob_acuw_justify)
COB_SYSTEM_GEN ("CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP", 1, cob_oc_nanosleep)
/**/
Note the “SYSTEM”. This CALL sends a command string to the shell. It acts as a wrapper to the standard C library “system” call. “SYSTEM” removes any trailing spaces from the argument and appends the null terminator required for the C library “system” call. While shell access opens yet another powerful door for the OpenCOBOL programmer, diligent delevop