"A tutorial and modular reference on COBOL for established programmers"--Cover.

Includes index.

Introduction to COBOL -- COBOL foundation -- Data declaration in COBOL -- Procedure division basics -- Control structures : selection -- Control structures : iteration -- Introduction to sequential files -- Advanced sequential files -- Edited pictures -- Processing sequential files -- Creating tabular data -- Advanced data declaration -- Searching tabular data -- Sorting and merging -- String manipulation -- Creating large systems -- Direct access files -- The COBOL report writer -- OO-COBOL.

Beginning COBOL for Programmersis a comprehensive,sophisticated tutorial and modular skills referenceon the COBOL programming language for established programmers. This book is for you if you are a developer who would like to - or must - add COBOL to your repertoire. Perhaps you recognize the opportunities presented by the current COBOL skills crisis, or you may be working in a mission critical enterprise which retains legacy COBOL applications. Whatever your situation,Beginning COBOL for Programmers meets your needs as an established programmer moving to COBOL. Beginning COBOL for Programmersincludes coverage of the latest COBOL featuresand techniques, including control structures, tabular data, sequential files, procedure divisions, string handling, decimal arithmetic, report writer, object-orientedCOBOL, and more.You'll receive extensive introductions to the core features of the COBOL language, and then find solutions about how to effectively deploy COBOL to build robust mission critical enterprise applications that talk to legacy enterprise applications or aspects of those applications. If you've inherited some legacy COBOL, you'll be able to grasp the COBOL idioms and recognize what's happening in the code you're working with. The death of COBOL has been predicted time and time again, yet COBOL still remains a dominant force at the heart of enterprise computing.In 1997, the Gartner group estimated that of the 300 billion lines of code in the world, 240 billion (80%) were written in COBOL, and that dominance is not greatly changed today.But there is a crisis on the horizon.While the number of COBOL programmers reaching retirement age has created a growing shortage, attempts to rewrite COBOL legacy systems in a more fashionable language have oftennot been successful or put aside for a number of reasons. Therefore, today's enterprise application developers - mostly skilled at C++, C# and Java - can find COBOL skills open new - or old - doors, and this handy reliable reference is a book that you can turn to for your COBOL skills--