PERFORM statement transfers control to a block of code that will be executed just once. This could either be a paragraph or a section. Alternatively, it could execute several blocks of code contained in a number of consecutive paragraphs by using the PERFORM THRU construct. You can use the PERFORM verb to execute a block […]
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The COBOL MERGE statement combines two or more identically sequenced files on a set of specified keys. As part of the merge operation, it makes records available in their merged order to an output procedure or an output file. The records are made available following the actual merging of the files. The output procedure or
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COBOL SORT files are common functionalities of COBOL applications. Sorting is required for sequential processing as the files need to be sorted in ascending/descending order. The COBOL SORT statement creates a sort file by executing input procedures or by transferring records from another file, sorts the records in the sort file on a set of
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The JOIN operation allows you to combine rows from two or more tables based on a related column. OUTER JOIN includes the FULL, RIGHT, and LEFT OUTER JOINS. When two tables are joined there can be NULL values from either table. For INNER JOINs, records with nulls won’t match, and they will be discarded and won’t
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Conditional expressions identify conditions that are tested to enable the object program to select between alternate paths of control depending upon the truth value of the condition. Conditional expressions may be used in the EVALUATE, IF, PERFORM, and SEARCH statements. Conditional expressions have a value of “TRUE” or “FALSE”. Conditional expressions can either be simple
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EVALUATE statement is used for conditional processing which helps in eliminating a series of nested IF statements to test several conditions. The EVALUATE statement is very similar to the CASE construct common in many other programming languages. If none of the EVALUATE satisfies, by default the statements coded under WHEN OTHER will be executed and
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The FIND DURATION function is used to calculate duration between: The FIND-DURATION function returns an integer in the form of complete units of the specified duration. Any rounding is done downwards. The calculation of durations includes microseconds. The function type is integer. The function result is a nine-digit integer. If the function result is larger
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The collection of records belonging to the same entity is known as File. These records are stored permanently. File handling helps to organize these records in an ascending/descending order. It makes searching, accessing these records more easily and efficiently. The records are generally stored on a magnetic tape or a disk. Advantages of File Handling Disadvantages of File
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FILE ALLOCATION is a key concept in COBOL programming. A file is a collection of data related to a set of entities and typically exists on a magnetic tape or a disk. We refer file as PS in the Mainframe environment. In File, data is organized as records. Each record is divided into fields that
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Any I-O operations on a file, there are chances that it may fail. We need to have COBOL FIle Error Handling. COBOL itself does not automatically take corrective action, we have to choose whether our program should continue running after an error or not. The severity of the error has to be defined in the
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The ROUNDED option used to round the fraction result of the compute statement exceeds the length of the target data item fractional places. After decimal point alignment, the number of fraction places in arithmetic operation is compared with the number of fraction places of result identifier. If the size of the fractional result exceeds the
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Figurative constants are reserved words that name and refer to specific constant values. These can be easily used by writing the word itself instead of the value. The figurative constants supported by COBOL are: ZERO, ZEROS, ZEROES SPACE, SPACES HIGH-VALUE, HIGH-VALUES LOW-VALUE, LOW-VALUES QUOTE, QUOTES ALL literal – which means fill the field with ALL
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The INSPECT statement can be used to tally the number of occurrences of specific character strings, to replace characters by other characters, or to convert from one set of characters to another including UPPERCASE TO LOWERCASE and vice versa. The INSPECT verb has two options, TALLYING and REPLACING. You can do one or the other
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Arrays are data structures that are used to simplify coding and improve processing efficiency. It is a linear data structure and is a collection of individual data items of the same type. Data items of a table array are internally sorted. An array can contain any number of data items of identical type and size. Each
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SSRANGE: Arrays in COBOL are known as tables. An array is a linear data structure and is a collection of individual data items of the same type. Data items of a table are internally sorted. Let’s say we have an array of 100 occurrences and program tried to access 101 occurrences of the array then
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COBOL or Common Business Oriented Language is an English like compiled programming language used mainly for business COBOL Interview questions with answers will help you prepare for technical interviews and online selection tests during campus placement for freshers and job interviews for professionals. COBOL Interview questions with answers 1. What is the distinction among INCLUDE
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The UNSTRING statement used to separate single string to multiple based on the delimiter provided in the UNSTRING. It needs at least two destination identifier or literals. It can only separate alphabetic and alpha-numeric items. END-STRING, DELIMITED BY, TALLYING, WITH POINTER, ON OVERFLOW and NOT ON OVERFLOW clause is optional in UNSTRING usage. UNSTRING statement
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STRING statement strings together the partial or complete contents of two or more data items or literals into one single data item. STRING needs at least two identifiers or literals. It can only concatenate alphabetic and alpha-numeric items. It will remove multiple instances of delimiter character and consider multiple spaces as a single space. END-STRING,
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COBOL Intrinsic Functions provides many ways to manipulate data. These are a set of functions that return values from a specific algorithm on input arguments. Intrinsic Functions are available for mathematics, character manipulation, date/time and statistics, and financial work. These functions are elementary data items that will return a numeric (whole or decimal) or an
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POINTER is one of the data types in COBOL. A variable defined as data type POINTER can store the memory address of the other variables used in the program. There are different ways in which we can use POINTER variables in our program to achieve different tasks. One such example is retrieving data from “Linked
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Depending on the linkage options, the object module of the calling program is linked with the object module of the called program “before or during” execution – referred to as static or dynamic linking. Note : Even if your program is coded to call a program statically, the compiler can convert it to the dynamic
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LINEAR and BINARY searches can be coded using traditional code or using the SEARCH or SEARCH ALL verb. The one that is coded using traditional code uses an Occurs to define the re-occurrence of the elements in the table and the Subscript to control stepping through the table one element at a time using the
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Using indexes to address a table is more efficient than using subscripts since the index already contains the displacement from the start of the table and does not have to be calculated at run time. Subscripts, on the other hand, contain an occurrence number that must be converted to a displacement value at run time
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USAGE and COMP: USAGE CLAUSE -There are two general forms of internal representation – computational and display (Usage and Comp). Only numeric data items can be displayed as computational, and as the name suggests, an item specified as computational can take part in arithmetic operations more efficiently. Whether a data item is computational or display, it
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REDEFINES: Sometimes, it may be found that two or more storage areas defined in the DATA DIVISION are not in use simultaneously. In such cases, only one storage area can serve the purpose of two or more areas if the area is redefined. The REDEFINES clause allows the same memory area to be described by
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