Prerequisite for attendance is experience in programming skills in other languages. Attendees should also have a conceptual level understanding of the z/OS mainframe environment and the ability to use TSO/ISPF and JCL.

• code the four divisions of a COBOL program
• write, compile and test COBOL batch programs in an IBM environment
• access files from COBOL programs
• perform arithmetic operations in COBOL programs
• use conditional expressions
• call COBOL subroutines
• define and access tables using both subscripts and indexes.

Structure & coding conventions

PC Metalanguage; the COBOL character set ; coding conventions; divisions, sections, paragraphs, sentences and statements

FILE SECTION and WORKING - STORAGE SECTION; FDs; hierarchy and level numbers; elementary and group data items; PICTUREs; the VALUE clause; editing characters; literals, figurative constants.

MOVE, ADD, SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, DIVIDE and COMPUTE; PERFORM; ACCEPT and DISPLAY; OPEN and CLOSE; READ and WRITE; file access modes; indexed and relative files.

IF and ELSE; comparisons and tests; Level 88; negated conditions; nested IFs; GO TO; PERFORM UNTIL; EVALUATE.

Tables; PERFORM...VARYING; implicit and explicit redefinition; DISPLAY, COMP, COMP-3, SYNC and JUSTIFY; data representation; INITIALIZE.

DECLARATIVES; the CORRESPONDING clause.

COPY; LINKAGE SECTION; CALL; SORT and MERGE.