Language Reference

This document presents the syntax of IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS and OS/390, referred to in this document as "Enterprise COBOL."

Use this document in conjunction with the Enterprise COBOL Programming Guide.

IBM extensions generally add features, syntax, or rules beyond those specified in ANSI and ISO COBOL standards. Extensions range from minor relaxation of rules to major capabilities, such as XML support, Unicode support, object-oriented COBOL for Java interoperability, and DBCS character handling.

Appendix A, "IBM extensions" in topic APPENDIX1.1, lists IBM extensions. The rest of this document describes the complete language without identifying extensions. You will need to review the Appendix and the compiler options described in the Enterprise COBOL Programming Guide if you want to use only standard language elements.

Obsolete language elements are COBOL 85 Standard language elements that will be deleted from the next revision of the ANSI and ISO COBOL standards (referred to in this document as Standard COBOL.

Note: This does not imply that these elements will be eliminated from a future release of Enterprise COBOL.

The language elements that will be deleted from the next revision of the ANSI and ISO COBOL standards are:
ALTER statement
AUTHOR paragraph
Comment entry
DATA RECORDS clause
DATE-COMPILED paragraph
DATE-WRITTEN paragraph
DEBUG-ITEM special register
Debugging sections
ENTER statement
GO TO without a specified procedure name
INSTALLATION paragraph
LABEL RECORDS clause
MEMORY SIZE clause
MULTIPLE FILE TAPE clause
RERUN clause
REVERSED phrase
SECURITY paragraph
Segmentation module
STOP literal format of the STOP statement
USE FOR DEBUGGING declarative
VALUE OF clause

The figurative constant ALL literal, when associated with a numeric or numeric-edited item and with a length greater than one

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