COBOL Programming Part 1

SUMMARY: Suitable for the BCS Mainframe Technology professional Exams for levels 1 and 2 Developer
AUDIENCE: Application Programmers with minimal experience in COBOL who want formal training in the basic language and programming techniques
PREREQUISITES: An understanding of programming design, (e.g. Attendance of our Jackson Structured Programming course) is useful but not essential.
DURATION: 5 days. Hands on.
OBJECTIVES: Each delegate will acquire a working knowledge of the basic tools of COBOL. They will gain a solid foundation in the fundamentals of COBOL coding including program structure, design, execution and debugging. The concepts of structured programming are stressed with examples and explanation. Good programming practice is encouraged throughout. The course starts with the basics and builds with hands-on assignments until the delegates are capable of complex programming logic and design.
COURSE CONTENT:
Introduction to COBOL Concepts
What is COBOL programming?
How does it fit into the environment?
Basic terms and Language structure
Programming fundamentals

COBOL: The Ground Rules
Language areas and pre defined columns
Identification division
Environment division
Data division
Procedure division
COBOL organisation

Creating the First Working Program
Compiling the first working program
Simple Input/Output
Defining records
Moving data
Debugging

Paragraphs and Structured Programs
Organising subroutines
The PERFORM statement
The PERFORM UNTIL statement
Repetitive processing
Paragraphs versus Sections
COBOL 85 concepts

Defining and Moving Data
Working storage concepts
Level numbers
Groups and elementary items
USAGE clause
PICTURE clause
Alphanumeric data
Numeric data
The MOVE statement

Sequential File Operations
The INPUT-OUTPUT section
The FILE section
The OPEN and CLOSE statements
The READ statement
The WRITE statement
Programming sequential files

COBOL Arithmetic
Overview of Concepts
COMPUTATIONAL usage
Arithmetic Operations
The COMPUTE statement
Size errors and ROUNDING

Editing Numeric Data
Edited data format
Implied decimal points
Zero suppression
Floating pound signs

COBOL Logic
The IF statement
The ELSE option
Nested IF''s
The NOT operator
Compound IF''s
COBOL 85 concepts

Table Processing
Array concepts
Defining tables
The OCCURS clause
The PERFORM VARYING statement
Table searching
Index concepts
The SEARCH statement

Summary
COBOL future
Structured Programming in COBOL

WORKSHOPS: Workshops in this class are conducted in a hands-on environment. Delegates will code execute and debug a series of programs serving as an excellent example for future programming in COBOL.