How to Write to a Simple COBOL Program with DB2: 11 Steps

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The importance of knowing COBOL is quite beneficial even if the language is fifty years old. The language is still being used today to store data in our governments, banks and businesses with little to no signs of changing to newer languages. COBOL programming with DB2 can be very frustrating to learn but the underlying concepts are easier than our thinking and with time anyone can learn it.

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COBOL programs are hierarchical in structure. Each element of the hierarchy consists of one or more subordinate elements. The hierarchy consists of Divisions, Sections, Paragraphs, Sentences and Statements. A Division may contain one or more Sections, a Section one or more Paragraphs, a Paragraph one or more Sentences and a Sentence one or more Statements. We can represent the COBOL hierarchy using the COBOL metalanguage as the below picture.

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1
To describe the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION supplies information about the program to the programmer and the compiler.
2
To write the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION is used to describe the environment in which the program will run. The purpose of this division is to isolate in one place all aspects of the program that are dependant upon a specific computer, device or ending sequence.
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DATA DIVISION - descriptions of the data-information processed by the program. FILE SECTION and WORKING-STORAGE SECTION are included. The LINKAGE SECTION and the REPORT SECTION are additional sections
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Procedure Division - contains the code(To manipulate the data in the DATA DIVISION)
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Minimum COBOL program - For example, the above program is valid when compiled with the Microfocus NetExpress compiler.
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COBOL DB2 PROGRAMMING - Assume we have the following table in DB2(database)
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To declare the table in the WORKING-STORAGE SECTION or LINKAGE SECTION. If you create a copybook using DCLGEN. You can declare as the below simply.
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Host variable declaration VS DB2 - If you use DB2 tool DCLGEN, it will automatically creates this structure and table declaration specified in the table declaration of WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
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SQLCA in WORKING-STORAGE SECTION
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DB2 sql statement in the PROCECURE DIVISION
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As the above steps, we have completed coding a COBOL-DB2 program.

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