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COBOL (/ ˈ k oʊ b ɒ l,-b ɔː l /; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and ...
COBOL uses the syntax WRITE record-name AFTER ADVANCING n Lines., where record-name is the name of the area containing the line and n is the number of lines. Additionally BEFORE ADVANCING can be used or BEFORE|AFTER ADVANCING TOP to skip to the top of a new page. [1]
At the height of COBOL usage in the 1960s through 1980s, the IBM COBOL product was the most important of any industry COBOL compilers. In his popular textbook A Simplified Guide to Structured COBOL Programming , Daniel D. McCracken tries to make the treatment general for any machine and compiler, but when he gives details for a particular one ...
GnuCOBOL (formerly known as OpenCOBOL, and briefly as GNU Cobol) is a free implementation of the COBOL programming language that is part of the GNU project. GnuCOBOL translates the COBOL code into C and then compiles it using the native C compiler .
It is used in character data on IBM mainframes by languages such as COBOL, PL/I, and RPG. [1] Its purpose is to save a character that would otherwise be used by the sign digit. [2] The code is derived from the Hollerith Punched Card Code, where both a digit and a sign can be entered in the same card column. It is called an overpunch because the ...
A picture clause element defines how a particular data item should be formatted, for output. It consists of a string of letters and digits. It is similar to the FORTRAN format specifier seen in the READ and WRITE statements, or the formatting strings seen in more modern languages like C. This became an important part of COBOL.
DIBOL has a syntax similar to FORTRAN and BASIC, along with BCD arithmetic. It shares the COBOL program structure of separate data and procedure divisions. Unlike Fortran's numeric labels (for GOTO), DIBOL's were alphanumeric; [ 1 ] the language supported a counterpart to computed goto.
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