Re: [Tiny-cobol-users] Fixed a bit but there's another question

[John R. C. <jo...@we...>]

On Sunday 02 April 2006 11:24, Marion C. Magee wrote:
> Try putting '100-MAIN. ' right below the line 'PROCEDURE DIVISION'.
> Then remove the '.' at the end of the DISPLAY line
>
> **Program Listing**
>
> IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
> PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
> ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
> DATA DIVISION.
> PROCEDURE DIVISION.
> 100-MAIN.
>     DISPLAY "HELLO WORLD"
>     STOP RUN.
>
> **End Listing**
>
> Marion C. Magee
> Student/ECU
> ma...@cs...
> 580-421-9681
>
> Fred Mobach wrote:
> > On Friday 31 March 2006 06:50, Dilsia A. Martinez wrote:
> >> Dear TinyCOBOL Users:
> >>
> >>   I've rewritten the program hello world but now it
> >> gives me the following error:
> >>
> >> C:\TinyCOBOL>htcobol hello.cob
> >> hello.cob:     6: error: syntax error on or before '.'
> >> hello.cob      6: error: unknown or wrong statement,
> >> on or before '.'
> >>
> >>
> >> My program is written as follows:
> >>
> >> IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
> >> PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
> >> DATA DIVISION.
> >> PROCEDURE DIVISION.
> >> DISPLAY   'HELLO WORLD'.
> >> STOP RUN.
> >
> > I don't know if it is nowadays still important but in the old days the
> > COBOL syntax requested the proper usage of margins. In case it is still
> > important you might prefix the lines with DISPLAY and STOP with four
> > space characters.
>

I agree with the need for at leat one paragraph header in the
PROCEDURE DIVISION. I don't agree with removing the period. It
should work either way.

I agree with the need for more indentation for non-header lines.
The rules on the modern format are a bit confusing to me so I
always use the old format (sometimes with line numbers!) I
start headers, level  01, and level 77 in column 8 and everything
else in column 12 or more. Your program with additional space works
 with Tiny Cobol and Open Cobol on my Slackware Linux system:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
       DATA DIVISION.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       DISPLAY   'HELLO WORLD'.
       STOP RUN.

Now it really shouldn't. The version below is more
traditional and hence safer:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
       ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
       DATA DIVISION.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       MAIN-ROUTINE.
           DISPLAY   'HELLO WORLD'.
           STOP RUN.

To avoid stupid mistakes I always start off with a copy of my
"template.cbl" program and then add code to it:

000010 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000020 PROGRAM-ID. TEMPLATE.
000030 AUTHOR. JOHN CULLETON.
000040 INSTALLATION. WEXFORDPRESS
000045            Eldersburg MD.
000050*REMARKS.
000060*    THIS IS A TEMPLATE FOR OPEN COBOL AND HTCOBOL.
000070 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000080
000090 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000100 SOURCE-COMPUTER.
000110      Linux.
000120 OBJECT-COMPUTER.
000230      Linux.
000140
000150 INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
000160 FILE-CONTROL.
000170     SELECT PRINTFILE ASSIGN TO PRINTER.
000180 DATA DIVISION.
000190
000200 FILE SECTION.
000210
000220 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
000230
000240 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000250 001-MAIN-PROCEDURE.
000260     DISPLAY "TEMPLATE".
000270          STOP RUN.




-- 
John Culleton
COBOL since 1968.