The Complete Course of COBOL 2025

Explore the COBOL coding sheet and program structure, including divisions, sections, paragraphs, and sentences, and learn how columns organize references, comments, and code.

Explore COBOL program structure by detailing the four divisions—identification division, environment division, data division, and procedure division—and key elements such as program id, config creation, and stop run.

Write a simple hello world COBOL program, outlining identification, environment, data, and procedure divisions, and compile and execute it via JCL on a mainframe.

Participate in module three quizzes on COBOL fundamentals, answering questions about pick nine of five data type size, the multiply and compute operations, and alphanumeric storage with pick x.

Explore COBOL data types—numeric, alphabetic, and alphanumeric—and declare variables in data division with level numbers and picture clauses, plus a hands-on display demonstration.

Master COBOL arithmetic operations in the procedure division, covering the five verbs: add, subtract, multiply, divide, and compute, to perform numeric calculations and display results.

Take a COBOL module three quiz. It covers data types, including pick nine of five as a five byte type, the multiply operation, and the compute statement for calculations.

Explore conditional statements in COBOL by mastering if, else, and then constructs, with nested checks and evaluation of conditions using an example program flow and display statements.

Learn how to implement nested if statements in COBOL, including defining variables in working storage, using if-then-endif blocks, and testing with compile and run steps on the mainframe.

Use the evaluate verb to replace nested ifs in COBOL, evaluating multiple conditions like a switch. Example with W shows greater than zero, less than zero, or an invalid value.

Explore COBOL decision making with quizzes on else in if statements, nested conditionals, evaluate versus if else for multiple conditions, and the use of logical operators to combine conditions.

Explore the COBOL perform looping constructs, including inline perform, perform through, perform until, perform times, and perform varying, with practical examples and syntax demonstrations.

explains the continue and next sentence statements in COBOL, showing how each transfers control to the next executable statement with respect to the period.

Test your COBOL skills in module five with a quiz on the perform statement, nested loops, exit a paragraph prematurely, and perform n times.

Explore COBOL file handling concepts, including field, record, physical record, logical record, and file, and learn sequential and random file processes with practical reading, writing, and updating examples.

Explore COBOL file handling by comparing sequential, index sequential, and relative file organizations, and define file attributes in environment and data divisions to read, write, and manage records.

This lecture teaches COBOL file handling by reading a sequential file, printing records to sysout, and outlines later practicals on reading an employee file to generate a report.

Writes a COBOL program to read an 80-byte fixed-block employee input file and generate a report file containing each employee’s id and bonus, using a read/write loop and end-of-file handling.

Update a COBOL report file with the rewrite verb in io mode, reading the file and updating bonus details for a given employee ID.

Explore COBOL file handling concepts through a module six quiz, covering opening files for reading and writing, the select statement, file descriptions, and rewriting records.

Learn to use one-dimensional and two-dimensional arrays in COBOL, with occurs used to define a table in working storage, access elements by index, and perform search operations on the array.

Explore COBOL two-dimensional arrays defined with the occurs clause twice, where the first occurrence creates rows and the second creates columns, illustrated with a mainframe program and array values.

Learn to use subscript to access elements in one-dimensional and two-dimensional arrays, with subscripts from 1 to the number of occurrences, and in two-dimensional arrays use row and column coordinates.

Define and access a two-dimensional COBOL array using the index by clause, and iterate rows and columns with set and perform varying to display values.

Learn to use the set statement to initialize and adjust index values I and J in a COBOL array, including increment and decrement, with search and search all.

Learn how COBOL uses a linear search on indexed tables to locate elements, then apply a search all example to retrieve an employee bonus by id from a sorted array.

Answer quiz questions on module seven table processing in COBOL. Cover index starting points, unsorted vs sorted tables, the occurs clause, and the when condition for successful searches.

Learn how COBOL uses the call verb to transfer control between a parent and child program, and how linkage section and exit program support parameter passing and return.

Explore a two-program cobol example showing a calling program and a called program that pass data via linkage, display results, and return control on a mainframe.

Explore call by reference and call by content in COBOL, showing how by reference reflections modify calling program variables, while by content prevents changes from propagating.

This quiz covers module eight subprograms in cobol, teaching how to call subroutines, use the using clause to pass data, and exit program to return to the calling program.

Master COBOL string handling with inspect, telling, and replacing to count characters and replace values across alphanumeric, numeric, and alphabetic data.

Learn how the string verb concatenates multiple strings using delimited by clauses, and how the un string verb splits a string into substrings, with syntax and overflow display messages.

The complete course of COBOL 2025 offers a quiz on string handling in COBOL. It covers inspect to count and replace characters, and string to concatenate and split delimited strings.

Explore COBOL coding standards and industry best practices to improve maintainability, readability, and code quality through naming conventions, documentation, indentation, comments, error handling, and proper division organization.

Explore how COBOL remains relevant in modern IT by supporting legacy systems, delivering reliable transaction processing, and integrating with web services, APIs, cloud, and modern tooling.