IBM COBOL400 Interview Preparation Guide

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Section is group of Praragraphs.
Paragraph is group of executable statements.
Sentence is statement(executable statements).

Array can be declared in cobol using the OCCURS clause.

Syntax is,

For one dimensional array,

01 Arrays.
05 Var1 PIC X(10) Occurs 10 times.


For two dimensional array,

01 Arrays.
03 AAA Occurs 10 times
05 BBB Occurs 10 times
07 Value PIC 9(3).

Comp : Store the data in Binary formate, it will take less
space compare to Comp-3.

Comp-3 : Store the data in Pack decimal,it will take more
space compare to Comp.

Example :

S9(18)

Comp : takes 4 bytes
Comp-3: takes 10 bytes

"COMP" in Cobol = Binary storage format(if -ve bit is ON,
if +ve bit is OFF)
COMP-1 = Single precision floating point. Uses 4 bytes.
COMP-2 = Double precision floating point. Uses 8 bytes.
COMP-3 = packed decimal format. Uses 4 bytes.


Example 01 WS-VAR USAGE COMP-1.

to execute set of statement elsewhere in the prgram.
types :
perform para-name.
perform para1 until condition.
perform para1 n times.
perform para1 thru para4 until condition.
inline perform.
perform varying i from 1 by 1 until condition.
perform para1 with test before/after until condition.

Search verb searches an item in a sequential manner. But
Search All searches an item by using Binary search, so it
is more efficient and faster than its counter part. One
thing required in Search All verb is the array must be
sorted.

There are some conditions,
1. File should be decare in FILE-CONTROL, FILE SECTION.
2. file should be closed before opening it other wise ut
will gives error.

yes, we can open closed file in COBOL any no. of time but
the condition is the file is not closed with "WITH LOCK"
clause otherwise you can't open.

When a programmer is not intended to use any fields in a record structure, it can be defined as Filler.
This can’t be initialized or used in any operation of the procedure division.


Eg: if a record contains the following fields
05 EMP-REC.
10 EMP-KEY PIC XXX.
10 EMP-NAME PIC X(32).
10 EMP-SEX PIC X.
10 EMP-DEPT PIC X(10)
10 EMP-DESIG PIC X(5).
10 EMP-SAL PIC 9(7).


If the programmer is not intended to use , name ,dept and sal in the program the u can define the structure as follows
05 EMP-REC.
10 EMP-KEY PIC XXX.
10 FILLER PIC X(32).
10 EMP-SEX PIC X.
10 FILLER PIC X(10)
10 EMP-DESIG PIC X(5).
10 FILLER PIC 9(7).

The cobol compiler is IGYCRCTL