DEC-10-LCPRA-A-D COBOL Vers 6 Nov74

This document is a "COBOL Programmer's Reference Manual" for the DECsystem-10, published by Digital Equipment Corporation, with its latest revision in November 1974.

The manual describes the implementation of COBOL on the DECsystem-10, including its operation in both timesharing and batch modes, on-line editing and debugging features (like TECO, LINED, and COBDDT), sharable code, and peripheral device support.

It covers:

• Getting Started with DECsystem-10 COBOL (Chapter 1)
• Introduction to COBOL Language, including its structure, character set, words, literals, and punctuation, along with source program formats (Chapter 2)
• Detailed descriptions of the four major divisions of a COBOL program: Identification Division (Chapter 3), Environment Division (Chapter 4), Data Division (Chapter 5), and Procedure Division (Chapter 6). These chapters cover various clauses, entries, and statements within each division, explaining their functions and general formats.
• The COBOL Library (Chapter 7)
• Standard I/O Processing, covering access modes, recording modes, file and channel tables, blocking, label records, and subprograms (Chapter 8)
• Source Library Maintenance Program (Chapter 9)

Additionally, it includes appendices for:

• COBOL Reserved Words (Appendix A)
• Character Collating Sequence (Appendix B)
• Standard Calling Sequence for COBOL, MACRO, and FORTRAN-10/IV (Appendix C)
• Command Strings for the COBOL compiler (Appendix D)
• The SORT Program (Appendix E)
• COBOL Report Generator (COBRG) (Appendix F)
• The RERUN Program for restarting interrupted programs (Appendix G)
• Indexed Sequential File Maintenance (ISAM) program (Appendix H)
• Debugging COBOL Programs (COBDDT), including its commands, histogram features, and error messages (Appendix I)

The manual assumes the reader already has knowledge of the COBOL language and is intended primarily as a reference, not a tutorial. It reflects the software as of Version 6 of the COBOL compiler and Version 7 of LIBOL, the object-time system.