COBOL for the 21st Century

Appendix B. Differences Among the COBOL Standards

The following are some major additions to COBOL that were incorporated in the COBOL 85 standard and that we have discussed in the text. This list does not include every change from COBOL 74, just the more significant ones.

1. Scope Terminators

   Use the following terminators to produce a more well-designed program:

   END-ADD               END-MULTIPLY               END-START
   END-COMPUTE           END-PERFORM                END-STRING
   END-DELETE            END-READ                   END-SUBTRACT
   END-DIVIDE            END-RETURN                 END-UNSTRING
   END-EVALUATE          END-REWRITE                END-WRITE
   END-IF                END-SEARCH

   Examples

   1. IF AMT1 = AMT2
         READ FILE-1
            AT END MOVE 'NO ' TO ARE-THERE-MORE-RECORDS
         END-READ
      END-IF

   2. IF AMT1 = AMT2
         ADD AMT1 TO TOTAL
             ON SIZE ERROR PERFORM 200-ERR-RTN
         END-ADD
      END-IF

2. The reserved word THEN may be used in a conditional, which makes COBOL conform more specifically to an IF-THEN-ELSE structure.

   Example

   IF AMT1 < 0
   THEN
       ADD 1 TO CTR1
   ELSE
      ADD 1 TO CTR2
   END-IF

3. INITIALIZE Verb

   A series of elementary items contained within a group item can all be initialized with this verb. Numeric items will be initialized at zero, and nonnumeric items will be initialized with blanks.

   01 WS-REC-1.
      05         PIC X(20).
      05 NAME    PIC X(20).
      05         PIC X(15).
      05 AMT-1   PIC 9(5)V99.
      05         PIC X(15).
      05 AMT-2   PIC 9(5)V99.
      05         PIC X(15).
      05 TOTAL   PIC 9(6)V99.
      05         PIC X(13).
      .
      .
      .
      INITIALIZE WS-REC-1

   The above will set AMT-1, AMT-2, and TOTAL to zeros and will set all the other fields to spaces.

4. An in-line PERFORM is permitted, making COBOL more like pseudocode.

   Example

   PERFORM ADD AMT1 TO TOTAL ...