Structured Programming
Language
ITSS113
Lecture-1 : INTRODUCTION
Learning Objectives:
• To provide brief history of COBOL
• To learn the capabilities and limitations of COBOL
• To present the program layout of COBOL
• To discuss the structure of a COBOL program
• To determine the difference between COBOL Literal Set, COBOL
Words, COBOL Literals
Introduction to COBOL
• COBOL
– Common Business Oriented Language
– A third-generation programming language,
– Was one of the earliest high-level programming languages; still
widely used today.
– First proposed in 1959 by the Conference on Data Systems
Languages (CODASYL).
– Three ANSI standards for COBOL have been produced in 1968,
1974 and 1985.
– Object-oriented COBOL is the fourth edition in the continuing
evolution of ANSI/ISO standard COBOL.
Underlining Philosophy
• Like the name suggests, COBOL was meant to be
‘common’ or compatible among a significant group of
manufacturers
• COBOL is designed for developing business, typically file-
oriented, applications, and is not designed for writing
systems programs.
• Primary domain in business, finance, and administrative
systems for companies and governments.
Pro’s and Con’s
- Advantages - Disadvantages
- Simple - very wordy
- Portable - has a very rigid format
- Maintainable - not designed to handle
scientific applications
Distinct features
• The language is simple
• No pointers
• No user defined types
• No user defined functions
• ‘Structure like’ data types
• File records are also described with great detail,
as are lines to be output to a printer
• COBOL is self documenting
COBOL PROGRAM LAYOUT
The layout, or format, or a COBOL program follows
certain simple rules, which originated long ago when
programs were punched onto 80-column punch cards.
COBOL programs are written in coding sheets. There are
80 columns in a line of the coding sheet.
COBOL PROGRAM LAYOUT
(CONTINUED)
Column Field
1-3 Page Number
4-6 Line Number (1-6 Sequence Number)
7 Continuation / Comment
8-11 A – Margin / Area A
12-72 B- Margin /Area B
73-80 Identification
Structure of COBOL Program
• COBOL programs are hierarchical in structure.
– Each element of the hierarchy consists of one or more
subordinate elements.
• The levels of hierarchy are Divisions, Sections,
Paragraphs, Sentences and Statements
• There are 4 main divisions and each division provides
an essential part of the information required by the
complier
Structure of COBOL Program (continued)
• At the top of the COBOL hierarchy are the four divisions.
• The sequence in which they are specified is fixed, and must follow the order:
– IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. This division’s primary purpose is to name the
program
– ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. This division is primarily used to tell the computer
about the input and output devices such files or printers.
– DATA DIVISION provides descriptions of the data-items/fields processed by the
program.
– PROCEDURE DIVISION contains the code used to manipulate the data described
in the DATA DIVISION. It is here that the programmer describes his algorithm.
Note:
Some COBOL compilers require that all the divisions be present in a
program while others only require the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION and the
PROCEDURE DIVISION
Hello World Example
000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. HELLOWORLD.
000300
000400 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000500 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000600 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000700 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800
000900 DATA DIVISION.
001000 FILE SECTION.
001100
101200 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
101300
101400 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
101500 DISPLAY "Hello world!"
101600 STOP RUN.
Character Set
There are 50 different characters in
COBOL character set.
0-9 (10 numerals) ( (Left Parenthesis )
A-Z (26 English alphabets-only ) (Right Parenthesis)
capital letters) > (Greater than symbol)
– (minus sign or hyphen) < (Less than symbol)
+ (Plus sign)
* (Asterisk)
/ (Slash)
= (Equal sign)
$ (Currency sign)
, (Comma)
; (Semi colon)
. (Period or decimal point)
“ (Quotation mark)
Character Set (continued)
The characters 0-9 are called numeric characters or digits.
The characters A-Z are called letters
The remaining characters are called special characters.
The space or blank character in certain cases is treated as a
letter.
COBOL WORDS
A COBOL word can be formed using the following characters:
0-9
A-Z (a-z)
- (hyphen)
There are 2 types of words in COBOL:
1.) Reserved word
2.) User-defined word
COBOL WORDS (continued)
Paragraph names, Identifiers, File names can be defined by users.
The following rules must be adhered in forming COBOL user-defined
words:
1.) A word cannot begin or end with a hyphen.
2.) A word can have at the maximum 30 characters.
3.) One of the characters must be a letter.
(Some compilers put the additional restrictions that the
first character must be a letter.)
4.) Except hyphen (-) no special character allowed.
5.) Cannot be a COBOL reserved word.
COBOL WORDS (continued)
Examples
Valid Word Invalid Word Reason
emp-sal -pay (it starts with a hyphen)
NET-SAL TOTAL MARK (blank space embedded)
N100 COMPUTE (Reserved word)
23 (No letter)
Literals
The actual values can also appear in a program. Such values are
known as literals.
A data name may have different values at different points of time
whereas a literal means the specific value which remains unchanged
throughout the execution of the program.
For this reason a literal is often called a constant. Moreover the
literal is not given a name; it represents itself and does not require
to be defined in the DATA DIVISION.
Literals (continued)
There are 3 types of literals:
a)Numeric. Formed by digits only. It can have a sign (+ or
-) and can have a decimal point also.
b) Nonnumeric. Use in general to output messages or
headings. Characters that are enclosed between “ “
constitute nonnumeric literal.
c) Figurative Constants. Have some fixed names and
the compiler recognizes these names and it sets up
corresponding values in the object program.
Literals (continued)
Figurative Meaning
Constant
ZERO value 0
ZEROS
ZEROES
SPACE One or more blanks
SPACES
HIGH-VALUE Highest value in the
HIGH-VALUES Collating sequence
LOW-VALUE Lowest value in the
LOW-VALUES Collating sequence
QUOTE one or more of “
QUOTES
ALL literal one or more of the string characters
comprising the literal
Summary
• Brief history or COBOL
• Underlining Philosophy of COBOL
• Distinct Features of COBOL
• COBOL Program Layout
• Structure of COBOL program
• Character Set
• COBOL Words
• Literals Summary of the chapter or topic
