CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cobol
Humberto Fialho
Humberto Fialho

Reputation: 45

What is the significance of the code at right of variable declaration in COBOL?

I was studying COBOL code and I did not understand the number at the right of the code line:

007900     03  EXAMPLE-NAME       PIC S9(17)  COMP-3.              EB813597

the first number is about position of that line in code, the second is about column's position (like how many 'tabs' you are using), the third is type of variable, but the fourth (COMP-3) and mainly the last (EB813597) I did not understand.

What does it mean?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 163

Answers (1)

Bruce Martin
Bruce Martin

Reputation: 10543

Columns >= 72 are ignored. So EB813597 is ignored. It could be a change id from the last time it was changed or have some site specific meaning e.g. EB could be the initials of the person who last changed it.

Comp-3 - is the type of numeric. It is bit like using int or double in C/java. In Comp-3 (packed-decimal) 123 is stored as x'123c'. Alternatives to comp-3 include comp - normally big endian binary integer, comp-5 (like int / long in C)

007900     03  EXAMPLE-NAME       PIC S9(17)  COMP-3.              EB813597
 (a)      (b)  Field-Name         (c)  (d)    Usage (numeric type)


a - line-number ignored by the compiler
b - level-number it provides a method of grouping fields together

      01  Group.
          03 Field-1 ...
          03 Field-2 ... 

    field-1 and field-2 belong to group. it is a bit like struct in c

        struct {
            int field_1;
            int field-2;
            ...
       }
c) PIC (picture) tells us the field picture follows.
d) fields picture in this case it is a signed field with 17 decimal digits
Comp-3 - usage - how the field stored

So in summary EXAMPLE-NAME is a Signed numeric field with 17 decimal digits and it is stored as Comp-3 (packed decimal).

Upvotes: 2

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