On successful completion of this course, the student, with the aid of the appropriate reference materials, should be able to:

1. Code COBOL mainline programs that CALL subroutines, passing arguments as necessary and code COBOL subroutine programs that are CALLed, receiving any passed parameters
2. Explain the tradeoffs in deciding whether to use static or dynamic linkages when using external subroutines
3. Define and process tables, including:
   • Initializing tables using
   1. VALUE or REDEFINES clauses
   2. INITIALIZE statement
   3. loops
   4. extracting data from records in a file
   • Working with tables of more than one dimension
4. Process tables using subscripting, indexing, or mixing subscripting and indexing, also using relative subscripting and relative indexing
5. Use the SET, SEARCH, and SEARCH ALL verbs as they apply to indexed tables
6. Use the ALL subscript capability of intrinsic functions
7. Work with variable length records in sequential files
8. Use the string handling features of COBOL, including:
   • Reference modification (sub-stringing)
   • Hexadecimal notation
• LENGTH OF special register
• LENGTH intrinsic function
• INSPECT verb
• STRING verb
• UNSTRING verb
• Null-terminated strings
9. Use additional advanced features of the newest IBM COBOL compilers, including
   • Local-storage section
   • Recursive programs
• Pointers, procedure-pointers, function-pointers, and the Address Of special register
• Dynamic file allocation
10. (Optionally) use the COBOL SORT and MERGE verbs to sort or merge data sets.

© Copyright 2012, Steve Comstock, www.TrainersFriend.com