Programming in COBOL: Introduction and Workshop

A Short History of COBOL

A brief outline of the history of COBOL and it predecessors is given. Also, the various COBOL standards that have developed over the years are discussed.

COBOL Language Structure

This session introduces the basic principles of the COBOL language. Also, mechanisms used to compile, link, and run a COBOL application are introduced and tried out on a working sample program

COBOL Program Structure

The various Divisions of a COBOL program and their use is explained in this session and the first simple COBOL statements are introduced. The students will learn how to define data that is to be used in their programs.

Data Manipulation

This chapter addresses the various COBOL statements that are used to modified data in any way. Besides the MOVE and INITIALIZE statements we will concentrate on high level functions like STRING, UNSTRING, INSPECT, etc.

Control Flow

The PERFORM verb in its various forms for inline and out-of-line processing as well as loop control is discussed in this section of the course. The very powerful EVALUATE statement will be demonstrated.

Arithmetic Operations

While COBOL is certainly not the programming language used to solve numerical and/or mathematical problems, it nonetheless provides sufficient calculating capabilties for the business environment. We will discuss the COBOL verbs for numerical manipulation, and will introduce the "intrinsic functions" that will be included in the next COBOL standard (and are available on new Compilers)

Table Processing

Processing tables and arrays is one of the strong points of the COBOL language. Fixed and varying sized tables are discussed in this section, and the search mechanisms as provided by COBOL will be examined.

Working with files

In this last chapter of the course we will take a close look at the processing of QSAM and VSAM files. We will explore the possibilities of text formatting, and the options available to process sequential, numbered, and indexed files.