A Beginner’s Guide to Creating a COBOL Program

Introduction

COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) is a programming language that has been around for over six decades. Despite its age, COBOL remains widely used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. This guide will walk you through the basics of creating a COBOL program.

COBOL was designed for business data processing and is known for its readability and simplicity. Its syntax is similar to the English language, making it easier for beginners to understand and write code.

Setting Up Your COBOL Environment

Before you start coding, you’ll need to set up your COBOL development environment. You can use various COBOL compilers, but for this guide, we’ll use GnuCOBOL, an open-source COBOL compiler.

Installing GnuCOBOL

For Windows:

• Download and install GnuCOBOL from GnuCOBOL SourceForge.

For Linux:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install open-cobol

1. For MacOS:

brew install gnu-cobol

Writing Your First COBOL Program

Let’s create a simple COBOL program that prints “Hello, World!” to the console.

Step 1: Create a New File

Create a new file named hello.cob using your preferred text editor.

Step 2: Write the COBOL Code

Open hello.cob and write the following code:

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HELLO-WORLD.

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.

DATA DIVISION.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    DISPLAY 'Hello, World!'.
    STOP RUN.

Step 3: Compile the COBOL Program

Open your terminal and navigate to the directory where your hello.cob file is located. Compile the program using GnuCOBOL:

cobc -x hello.cob

This command generates an executable file named hello.

Step 4: Run the COBOL Program