March 2014
Intermediate to advanced
588 pages
15h 43m
English
Content preview from Beginning COBOL for Programmers
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CHAPTER 13
Searching Tabular Data
In previous chapters, you saw how to create and use tabular data. This chapter returns to the issue of processing tabular data to examine the operation of the SEARCH and SEARCH ALL verbs. SEARCH is used for linear searches, and SEARCH ALL is used for binary searches.
The chapter begins by noting that when you use SEARCH or SEARCH ALL, the table they are searching must have an associated table index. You learn the metalanguage for the INDEXED BY clause used to specify the table index and explore the nature of the index data item. Because index data items can’t be manipulated by ordinary COBOL verbs, the chapter ...