Beginning COBOL for Programmers

Beginning COBOL for Programmers is a comprehensive, sophisticated tutorial and modular skills reference on the COBOL programming language for established programmers. This book is for you if you are a developer who would like to—or must—add COBOL to your repertoire. Perhaps you recognize the opportunities presented by the current COBOL skills crisis, or are working in a mission critical enterprise which retains legacy COBOL applications. Whatever your situation, Beginning COBOL for Programmers meets your needs as an established programmer moving to COBOL.

Beginning COBOL for Programmers includes comprehensive coverage of ANS 85 COBOL features and techniques, including control structures, condition names, sequential and direct access files, data redefinition, string handling, decimal arithmetic, subprograms, and the report writer. The final chapter includes a substantial introduction to object-oriented COBOL.

Benefiting from over one hundred example programs, you’ll receive an extensive introduction to the core and advanced features of the COBOL language and will learn to apply these through comprehensive and varied exercises. If you’ve inherited some legacy COBOL, you’ll be able to grasp the COBOL idioms, understand the constructs, and recognize what’s happening in the code you’re working with.

Today’s enterprise application developers will find that COBOL skills open new—or old—doors, and this extensive COBOL reference is the book to help you acquire and develop your COBOL skills.

What you’ll learn

• The basics of COBOL and its control structures
• How to declare and manipulate data, including tabular data
• How to handle sequential, indexed, and relative files
• How to SORT data and use Input and Output procedures
• How to SEARCH tabular data
• How to use contained and external subprograms to create modular programs
• How to use the COBOL Report Writer
• How to write ISO 2002 object-oriented COBOL programs

Who this book is for

This book is for established programmers looking for a COBOL tutorial and modular skills reference in one handy book. Whether you have inherited some legacy COBOL and need to maintain it, or you have a fresh COBOL project in front of you, the tutorial and skills reference will help you succeed in COBOL.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction to COBOL
Chapter 2. COBOL Foundation
Chapter 3. Data Declaration In COBOL
Chapter 4. Procedure Division Basics
Chapter 5. Control Structures: Selection
Chapter 6. Control Structures: Iteration
Chapter 7. Introduction to Sequential Files
Chapter 8. Advanced Sequential Files
Chapter 9. Edited Pictures
Chapter 10. Processing Sequential Files
Chapter 11. Creating Tabular Data
Chapter 12. Advanced Data Declaration
Chapter 13. Searching Tabular Data
Chapter 14. Sorting and Merging
Chapter 15. String Manipulation
Chapter 16. Creating Large Systems
Chapter 17. Direct Access Files
Chapter 18. The COBOL Report Writer
Chapter 19. OO-COBOL