Cobol for Students

COBOL for Students has established itself as one of the most successful teaching texts on COBOL programming and is now in its fourth edition. The first part of the book concentrates on the fundamentals of the language and takes students to the point where they can write modestly sized programs using sequential files. Part two assumes competence in elementary COBOL and explains design and other programming techniques which should be part of the professional programmer's repertoire. Part three extends the student's knowledge of the language by explaining some of the more advanced features of COBOL.

Written for students learning COBOL for the first time, it takes the reader from the basic fundamentals right through to some of the more advanced features in one handy, and inexpensive volume. As many lecture courses have been based upon earlier editions of this book, this edition maintains the highly successful style and format and has been updated to include the 'Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL'. (This is the ANSI Standard X3.23a-1989 (COBOL 89) which has also been adopted as ISO International Standard 1989 Addendum 1 (an addendum to the ANSI Standard X3.23-1985 (COBOL 85)) and consists mainly of 42 predefined functions related to many different application areas).

Part 1: Fundamentals - Background concepts: a review * COBOL essentials * The arithmetic verbs * Transfer of control * The DATA DIVISION * Further data division entries * File handling and moving data in memory * Redefinition, subscripts * More about conditions and the PERFORM statements * IDENTIFICATION and ENVIRONMENT DIVISIONS * Part 2: Programming in COBOL - Structured programming constructs * Structured program design * Documentation * Program testing * String handling techniques * Programming interactive dialogues * Table manipulation * Part 3: Further COBOL - Further general features * The report writer * Direct access files * Subprograms and nested programs * SORTing * Intrinsic functions * Part 4: Appendices - Example program * A selection of practical exercises * COBOL 85 reserved words * ANS COBOL 85 language formats * Index.