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.00123 edited value will be taken. P is assumed decimal scaling position which is used to specify the location of an assumed decimal point when the point is not within the number that appears in the data item. .PIC PP999 means that numeric data item is of 3 characters and there are 5 positions after the decimal point.

A literal is a data item that consists value by itself. It cannot be referred by a name. They are constant data items.

Before REWRITE is performed, the record must be opened and read from the file. Therefore, the file must be opened in I-O mode for rewrite functionality.

No, the table must be indexed to search on a table.

PIC 9.99 is a four position field that actually contains a decimal point whereas PIC 9v99 is a three position numeric field with assumed decimal position.

Access modes are SEQUENTIAL or DYNAMIC for the start statement.

Local-Storage is allocated each time a program is called and will be deallocated when the program stops via an EXIT PROGRAM, GOBACK, or STOP RUN. It is defined in the DATA DIVISION after the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

If TEST BEFORE is specified, the condition is tested at the beginning of each repeated execution of the specified PERFORM range. If TEST AFTER is specified, the condition is tested at the end of each repeated execution of the PERFORM range. The range is executed at least once in TEST AFTER.

It appears in the Input-Ouput Section in the Environment Division.

Area B starts from 12 to 72 column.

Identification Division and Program-Id paragraph are mandatory in a COBOL program.

Supply the DD cards in JCL just as you would for files referred to in the main program.

Compute statement is used to write arithmetic expressions in COBOL. This is a replacement for Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide.

Accept Verb is used to get data such as date, time, and day from the operating system or directly from the user. If a program is accepting data from the user, then it needs to be passed through the JCL.

COMP-1 is single precision floating point that uses 4 bytes. COMP-2 is double precision floating point that uses 8 bytes.

Yes, as Redefines causes both fields to start at the same location.

Evaluate is like a case statement and can be used to replace nested Ifs. No break is required as the control comes out as soon as a match is found.

It is an elementary level item which cannot be subdivided.

The Purpose of Pointer phrase is to specify the leftmost position within the receiving field where the first transferred character will be stored.

Redefines clause is used to allow the same storage allocation to be referenced by different data names.

In static call, the called program is a standalone program, it is an executable program. During runtime, we can call it in our called program. As about dynamic call, the called program is not an executable program; it can be executed through the called program only.

Identification Division is used for documentation purpose.

Comp is a binary usage, while comp-3 indicates packed decimal.

It is stored in the last nibble.

The program will go in an infinite loop.

The linkage section is a part of a called program that 'links' or maps to data items in the calling program's working storage.

The parameters passed in a Call By Content are protected from modification by the called program. In Call By Reference, parameters can be modified by the called program.

To write into a file, the file has to be opened in either OUTPUT or EXTEND mode.

01 is of the record level. We repeat the fields within a record, not the record itself. So an Occurs clause can not be used at 01 level.

The maximum size of a numeric field is PIC 9(18).

File opening modes in COBOL include: INPUT, OUTPUT, I-O, and EXTEND.

SEARCH is a serial search, whereas SEARCH ALL is a binary search. A table must be in sorted order before using SEARCH ALL.

Subscript is the occurrence in an array. Index is the displacement from the beginning of an array.

Level 66 is used for RENAMES clause and Level 88 is used for condition names.

IS NUMERIC clause is used to check if any item is numeric or not. It returns TRUE when the item against which it is used contains only numbers (0 to 9). The item can be positive or negative.

Alpha-numeric (X), Alphabetic (A), and Numeric (9).

Identification Division, Environment Division, Data Division, and Procedure Division.

COBOL is a standard language that can be compiled and executed on various machines. It is ideally suited for business-oriented applications as it can handle huge volumes of data. It provides numerous debugging and testing tools. COBOL is a structured language; it has different divisions, so it is easy to debug.

COBOL stands for Common Business-Oriented Language. The US Department of Defense, in a conference, formed CODASYL (Conference on Data Systems Language) to develop a language for meeting business data processing needs which is now known as COBOL.