Sams Teach Yourself COBOL in 24 Hours

Hour 6Manipulating Data

You have now learned some simple data manipulation statements. You can do some basic math and move fields around. You have learned some basic features to allow you to interface with the user. Now it is time to cover some more advanced statements used to work with data fields.

In its role at fulfilling the needs of business, COBOL works with myriad data. It must handle the mathematics of business and be able to process textual data. Textual data consists of items such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. Textual data can also contain descriptions of other important data, such as medical procedures. COBOL comes with a suite of very powerful tools to handle and manipulate this type of data. In this hour you learn ...