HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

HP COBOL
Reference Manual

Function

The Procedure Division contains the routines that process the files and data described in the Environment and Data Divisions.

Syntax Rules

1. The Procedure Division follows the Data Division.
2. The Procedure Division must begin with the Procedure Division header.
3. The end of the Procedure Division is indicated by one of the following:
   • The Identification Division header of another source program
   • The END PROGRAM header
   • The physical position in the Procedure Division after which no further processing occurs
4. A procedure consists of either:
   • One or more successive sections
   • One or more successive paragraphs
5. If one paragraph is in a section, all paragraphs must be in sections.
6. A procedure-name refers to a paragraph or section in the source program. It is either paragraph-name (which can be qualified) or section-name.
7. A section consists of a section header followed by zero or more successive paragraphs. A section ends immediately before the next section or at the end of the Procedure Division. In the declaratives part of the Procedure Division, a section can also end at the key words END DECLARATIVES. See Section 2.3 for more information on declaratives.
8. A paragraph consists of a paragraph-name followed by a separator period, and by zero or more successive sentences. A paragraph ends immediately before the next paragraph-name or section-name or at the end of the Procedure Division. In the declaratives part of the Procedure Division, a paragraph can also end at the key words END DECLARATIVE. See Section 2.3 for more information on declaratives.
9. sentence contains one or more statements terminated by a separator period.
10. A statement is a syntactically valid combination of words and symbols that begins with a COBOL verb.
11. identifier is the word or words necessary to refer uniquely to a data item.

Procedure Division Header

12. The Procedure Division header identifies and begins the Procedure Division. It consists of the reserved words PROCEDURE DIVISION and optional USING and GIVING phrases followed by a separator period.
13. The USING phrase is required only if the program is invoked by a CALL statement with a USING phrase.
14. The Procedure Division header USING phrase identifies the names used in the program to refer to arguments from the calling program. In the calling program, the USING phrase of the CALL statement identifies the arguments. The data items in the two USING phrase lists correspond positionally.
15. Each data-name in the USING phrase must be defined in the Linkage Section with a level-01 or level-77 entry.
16. Each data-name cannot appear more than once in the USING phrase.
17. In the USING phrase, data-name cannot have the external attribute.
18. In the USING phrase, the data description for data-name cannot contain a REDEFINES clause. However, the data description can be the object of a REDEFINES clause.
19. The Procedure Division header GIVING phrase specifies a function result of the program. The identifier must refer to an elementary integer numeric data item with COMP, COMP-1, or COMP-2 usage and no scaling positions. The identifier cannot be subscripted, but it can be qualified.

Procedure Division Body

20. The Procedure Division body consists of all Procedure Division text following the Procedure Division header.

General Rules

1. References to USING phrase data-names operate according to data descriptions in the called program's Linkage Section, regardless of the descriptions in the calling program.
2. The called program can refer, in its Procedure Division, to a Linkage Section data item only if the data item satisfies one of these conditions:
   • It is in the Procedure Division header USING phrase.
   • It is subordinate to data-name that is in the Procedure Division header USING phrase.
   • Its definition includes a REDEFINES or RENAMES clause, the object of which is in the Procedure Division header USING phrase.
   • It is subordinate to an item that satisfies the previous conditions.
   • It is a condition-name or index-name associated with a data item that satisfies any of the previous conditions.
3. On Alpha and I64 systems, when a called program returns control to the calling program, the return value is made available to the calling program in the data item specified in its CALL statement GIVING phrase. The value is moved to that data item according to the rules for the MOVE statement. If the calling program does not specify a GIVING phrase, then the return value is made available in the calling program's RETURN-CODE special register. Note that the value in the called program's RETURN-CODE is not returned to the caller.
4. On Alpha and I64 systems, if no GIVING phrase is specified in the called program, the value in the RETURN-CODE special register is made available to the calling program in the data item specified in the calling program's CALL statement GIVING phrase. The value is moved according to the rules for the MOVE statement. If the calling program does not specify a CALL GIVING phrase, the value in the called program's RETURN-CODE special register is made available to the calling program in the calling program's RETURN-CODE special register.
   Table 6-7 shows the relationship between the GIVING phrase and RETURN-CODE.

Technical Notes

1. On Alpha and I64 systems, because the reserved word RETURN-CODE is one of the X/Open reserved words, you cannot use the compilation flag -rsv noxopen (for Tru64 UNIX systems) or the corresponding qualifier /RESERVED_WORDS = NOXOPEN (for OpenVMS systems) if your program uses the RETURN-CODE special register.
2. On Alpha and I64 systems, HP COBOL supports passing status to the operating system for RETURN-CODE and PROCEDURE DIVISION GIVING when EXIT PROGRAM or STOP RUN is executed. <>
   Four of the data types supported by PROCEDURE DIVISION GIVING can be used to communicate status to the operating system. Following is a summary of what is supported for both RETURN CODE and PROCEDURE DIVISION GIVING:

   RETURN-CODE (Alpha and I-64 only*) EXIT PROGRAM /STA=V3 yes EXIT PROGRAM /STA=85 yes STOP RUN yes PROCEDURE DIVISION GIVING EXIT PROGRAM /STA=V3 yes EXIT PROGRAM /STA=85 yes STOP RUN yes* Data Types COMP-1,COMP-2 no PIC 9(04) COMP no PIC S9(04) COMP no PIC 9(09) COMP yes PIC S9(09) COMP yes PIC 9(18) COMP yes PIC S9(18) COMP yes PIC 9(31) COMP no PIC S9(31) COMP no *Refer to the appendix on compatibility in the HP COBOL User Manual for differences on VAX.

   
   This support is subject to the limitations on status handling imposed by the operating system. If PIC S9(18) COMP or PIC 9(18) COMP is used, the high-order 32 bits are truncated before the status is passed on to the operating system.
   To display the operating system status information, do the following:

   [UNIX] echo $status [OpenVMS] show symbol $status

Additional References

• Section 6.8.4, CALL statement
• Section 6.8.42, USE statement
• Section 6.7, Segmentation

Example

The following is an example of a Procedure Division header:

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01      RETURN-RESULT PIC 9(8) COMP.
LINKAGE SECTION.
01      ARG1.
        03 ARG2       PIC X(6).
        03 ARG3       PIC S9(6) COMP.
01      ARG4          PIC X(4).
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING ARG1 ARG4 GIVING RETURN-RESULT.
        .
        .
        .
        MOVE 17 TO RETURN-RESULT.
        EXIT PROGRAM.