Sams Teach Yourself COBOL in 24 Hours

Thane Hubbell has been a COBOL programmer for 15 years. Thane possesses a working knowledge on a variety of systems, from mainframes to minis to PCs. He has designed and developed full scale systems from the initial concept or idea to the deployed product. Through his role as a flight instructor, Thane has come to understand how people learn and think in high pressure situations -- like in a programming environment . Initially a self taught programmer, with later education from IBM, Thane knows what it takes to learn a programming language on your own and how to teach one.

(NOTE: All chapters contain a Summary and all chapters, except for Chapter 24, conclude with Q&A and a Workshop.)

I. COBOL PROGRAM BASICS.

Hour 1. Getting Started.

COBOL Purpose and History. The Origin of COBOL. The COBOL Standard. Installing the Compiler.

Hour 2. Writing Your First Program in COBOL.

COBOL Program Layout. Creating a Simple COBOL Program. Compiling and Linking.

Hour 3. Different Data Types.

The Picture Clause. Numeric Fields. Alphanumeric Fields. Literals. Numeric Edited Fields. Alphanumeric Edited Fields. Group and Elementary Level Items. Using Data Types in a Program.

Hour 4. Basic User Interface.

Interfacing with the User. The Screen Section. Using the Screen Section in a Program.

Hour 5. Procedure Division.

Procedure Division Organization. Arithmetic Statements. Simple Data Manipulation.

Hour 6. Manipulating Data.

The Accept Statement. The Initialize Statement. The Inspect Statement. Reference Modification. Using What You Have Learned in a Program.

Hour 7. Manipulating String Data.

The String Statement. The Unstring Statement.

Hour 8. Conditional Statements.

Conditional Statements in COBOL. The Else Clause. 88 Levels and the Set Statement.

Hour 9. The Evaluate Statement.

When to Use Evaluate. Simple Evaluate Statements. More Complex Evaluate Usage.

Hour 10. Processing Loops.

The Basic Perform Statement. Sections and Paragraphs. Creating Processing Loops Using Perform.

Hour 11. Advanced Perform Statements.

Perform with Varying. The Use of the Inline Perform. The Inline If Statement and Perform. Using the Debugger.

Hour 12. Tables.

Defining a Table. Basic Table Handling. Populating a Table in Working-Storage. The Search Statement. Multidimensional Tables. Variable- Length Tables.

II. FILE HANDLING.

Hour 13. Sequential Files.

Connecting Your Program to a File. Opening the File. Closing the File. Writing to the File. Reading from the File. Updating the File. Variable-Length Records.

Hour 14. Indexed Files.

Defining the Indexed File. Creating an Indexed File from a Sequential File.

Hour 15. Reading Indexed File Records.

Various Access Methods. Random Access. Dynamic Access.

Hour 16. Updating Indexed File Records.

Opening for I-O. Writing Records. Rewriting Records. Deleting Records. Relative Files.

Hour 17. Sorting.

Sorting a File. Manipulating Data During the Sort.

III. BUSINESS PROCESSING.

Hour 18. Master File Updating.

Programming for Transaction Entry. Dat...