BASIC COMCEPTS OF COBOL

COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language)

            COBOL was developed in 1959 by a group called COnference on Data Systems Language (CODASYL). First COBOL compiler was released by December 1959. First ANSI approved version   was released on 1968.

KEY FEATURES OF COBOL:-

1. First language that was developed  for Business application development, which can handle huge volume of data.
2. Procedure Oriented Language. Program is segmented into several tasks. Each task is written as a Paragraph in Procedure Division and executed in a sequence defined by the user.
3. Easy to learn, code and maintain.

 COBOL CODING SHEET:-

          The COBOL programs must be written on special coding sheets known as COBOL coding sheet. each line in COBOL coding sheet contains 80 positions and they are divided into various sections, they are

1. SEQUENCE(1-6).
2. INDICATOR(7).
3. AREA A(8-11).
4. AREA B(12-72).
5. IDENTIFICATION(73-80).

SEQUENCE:- Page/line numbers Optional (automatically assigned by compiler).

INDICATOR:- The various characters used are Continuity(-), Comment(*), Starting a new page(/), Debugging lines(D).

AREA A:- Division, Section, Paragraph, 01,77 declarations must begin here.

AREA B:- All the other declarations/statements begin here.

IDENTIFICATION:- It will be ignored by the compiler but it will be visible in the source listing.