HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 1 Introduction to the COBOL Language
The COBOL Language
COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) is the programming language
most widely and extensively used in commercial and administrative data
processing.
This COBOL implementation is a superset of ANSI COBOL 1974 and ANSI COBOL
1985 as specified in American National Standard Programming Language
COBOL: ANSI X3.23-1974, ANSI X3.23-1985 and ANSI X3.23a-1989. Language
extensions include:
* most of the more commonly used extensions of IBM OS/VS COBOL
(Release 2.3 and later)
* most of the language constructs of IBM VS COBOL II (all releases),
IBM DOS/VS COBOL and IBM SAA AD/Cycle COBOL/370
* X/Open conforming extensions
* extensions specific to this system.
Combinations of these extensions are permissible in program source. In
addition a "flagging" option to identify the various language extensions
in COBOL source programs ensures that programs can be verified as being
valid for any given one of the language specifications.
The ANSI COBOL 1974 and 1985 modules that are fully implemented are:
* Nucleus
* Table Handling (In the Nucleus as of the ANSI'85 Standard)
* Record Sequential I/O
* Relative I/O
* Indexed I/O
* Sort-Merge
* Segmentation
* Library/Source Text Manipulation
* Inter-Program Communication
* Debug
* Report Writer
* Communications (Full ANSI'74 support and ANSI'85 syntax support.
)
* For ANS85 only: Intrinsic Functions
This COBOL system meets the certification requirements for the above
modules of The COBOL Compiler Validation System (CCVS) of the U.S.
Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.
For MF only: A number of additional enhancements to the COBOL language
are present:
* A screen handlingmodule, comprising a Screen Section and
additional formats of ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements, which enable
the user to specify exact location of fields on a screen, accept
data entered at specified positions, display literal text at
specified positions, define screen attributes, and control console
features.
* Enhanced file I-Owith an additional organization to handle
text-files efficiently; optional definition of file-names either
within a program source (data variable or literal) or at run time
from operating system environment variables; multiuser
file-sharing facilities.
* Systems programming extension which enhances interlanguage calls
and supports recursive COBOL programs.