| The part of a Cobol program that actually does the things that go wrong. It is the fourth of the four divisions that, and contains all the procedures or statements; as opposed to the previous three divisions, which define files and variables.
The procedure division is divided into paragraphs, each with an alphanumeric name. Division, paragraph, and (see below) section names begin in Area A (columns 8-11) and end in a full stop. Here is the simplest possible correct Cobol program:
000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000300 DATA DIVISION.
000400 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000500 A.
000600 STOP RUN.
It has only one paragraph (A) and only one command in it, the one that ends the program. (Falling off the edge of the program without hitting a STOP RUN crashes it, at least with the compiler I use.)
A more realistic example is this. I'll give it a name MYPROG, assign a file, and create two variables, a counter and an EOF flag. Cobol keywords are hardlinked.
000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000110 PROGRAM-ID. MYPROG.
000120
000200 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000210 INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
000220 FILE-CONTROL.
000230 SELECT F ASSIGN DISK.
000240
000300 DATA DIVISION.
000310 FILE SECTION.
000320 FD F.
000330 01 F-RECORD PIC X(80).
000340
000350 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
000360 01 REC-CT PIC 9(6).
000370 01 AT-EOF PIC 9.
000380
000400 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000500 A.
000510 PERFORM INITIALIZE-IT.
000520 PERFORM MAIN-LOOP UNTIL AT-EOF = 1.
000530 PERFORM TERMINATE-IT.
000600 STOP RUN.
000610 INITIALIZE-IT.
000620 MOVE 0 TO AT-EOF.
000630 MOVE 0 TO REC-CT.
000640 OPEN INPUT F.
000650 MAIN-LOOP.
000660 READ F
000670 END MOVE 1 TO AT-EOF
000680 EXIT PERFORM.
000690 ADD 1 TO REC-CT.
000700 TERMINATE-IT.
000710 CLOSE F.
000720 DISPLAY "TOTAL RECORDS = " REC-CT.
Once you're inside the Procedure Division it's not really that different from a lot of other languages.
Paragraphs can be grouped into sections. If sections are used at all, they must be used throughout. You give them alphanumeric names just like paragraphs. A fragment of the above with sections is this:
000400 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000500 CTRL SECTION.
000505 PARA-1.
000510 PERFORM INITIALIZE-IT.
000520 PERFORM MAIN-LOOP UNTIL AT-EOF = 1.
000530 PERFORM TERMINATE-IT.
000540 PARA-99.
000600 STOP RUN.
000605.
000610 INITIALIZE-IT SECTION.
000615 PARA-1.
000620 MOVE 0 TO AT-EOF.
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