COBOL (pl, appeared 1959)
Stands for: COmmon Business Oriented Language
Creators: Howard Bromberg
Norman Discount
Vernon Reeves
Jean E. Sammet
William Selden
Gertrude Tierney
Grace Hopper
Origin: Conference/Committee on Data Systems Languages
Country: United States
File extensions: cbl
cob
cpy
Keywords: ACCEPT
ACCESS
ADD
ADDRESS
ADVANCING
AFTER
ALL
ALPHABET
ALPHABETIC
ALPHABETIC-LOWER
ALPHABETIC-UPPER
ALPHANUMERIC
ALPHANUMERIC-EDITED
ALSO
ALTER
ALTERNATE
AND
ANY
APPLY
ARE
AREA
AREAS
ASCENDING
ASSIGN
AT
AUTHOR
BASIS
BEFORE
BEGINNING
BINARY
BLANK
BLOCK
BOTTOM
BY
CALL
CANCEL
CBL
CD
CF
CH
CHARACTER
CHARACTERS
CLASS
CLASS-ID
CLOCK-UNITS
CLOSE
COBOL
CODE
CODE-SET
COLLATING
COLUMN
COM-REG
COMMA
COMMON
COMMUNICATION
COMP
COMP-1
COMP-2
COMP-3
COMP-4
COMP-5
COMPUTATIONAL
COMPUTATIONAL-1
COMPUTATIONAL-2
COMPUTATIONAL-3
COMPUTATIONAL-4
COMPUTATIONAL-5
COMPUTE
CONFIGURATION
CONTAINS
CONTENT
CONTINUE
CONTROL
CONTROLS
CONVERTING
COPY
CORR
CORRESPONDING
COUNT
CURRENCY
DATA
DATE-COMPILED
DATE-WRITTEN
DAY
DAY-OF-WEEK
DBCS
DE
DEBUG-CONTENTS
DEBUG-ITEM
DEBUG-LINE
DEBUG-NAME
DEBUG-SUB-1
DEBUG-SUB-2
DEBUG-SUB-3
DEBUGGING
DECIMAL-POINT
DECLARATIVES
DELETE
DELIMITED
DELIMITER
DEPENDING
DESCENDING
DESTINATION
DETAIL
DISPLAY
DISPLAY-1
DIVIDE
DIVISION
DOWN
DUPLICATES
DYNAMIC
EGCS
EGI
EJECT
ELSE
EMI
ENABLE
END
END-ADD
END-CALL
END-COMPUTE
END-DELETE
END-DIVIDE
END-EVALUATE
END-IF
END-INVOKE
END-MULTIPLY
END-OF-PAGE
END-PERFORM
END-READ
END-RECEIVE
END-RETURN
END-REWRITE
END-SEARCH
END-START
END-STRING
END-SUBTRACT
END-UNSTRING
END-WRITE
ENDING
ENTER
ENTRY
ENVIRONMENT
EOP
EQUAL
ERROR
ESI
EVALUATE
EVERY
EXCEPTION
EXIT
EXTEND
EXTERNAL
FALSE
FD
FILE
FILE-CONTROL
FILLER
FINAL
FIRST
FOOTING
FOR
FROM
FUNCTION
GENERATE
GIVING
GLOBAL
GO
GOBACK
GREATER
GROUP
HEADING
HIGH-VALUE
HIGH-VALUES
I-O
I-O-CONTROL
ID
IDENTIFICATION
IF
IN
INDEX
INDEXED
INDICATE
INHERITS
INITIAL
INITIALIZE
INITIATE
INPUT
INPUT-OUTPUT
INSERT
INSPECT
INSTALLATION
INTO
INVALID
INVOKE
IS
JUST
JUSTIFIED
KANJI
KEY
LABEL
LAST
LEADING
LEFT
LENGTH
LESS
LIMIT
LIMITS
LINAGE
LINAGE-COUNTER
LINE
LINE-COUNTER
LINES
LINKAGE
LOCAL-STORAGE
LOCK
LOW-VALUE
LOW-VALUES
MEMORY
MERGE
MESSAGE
METACLASS
METHOD
METHOD-ID
MODE
MODULES
MORE-LABELS
MOVE
MULTIPLE
MULTIPLY
NATIVE
NATIVE_BINARY
NEGATIVE
NEXT
NO
NOT
NULL
NULLS
NUMBER
NUMERIC
NUMERIC-EDITED
OBJECT
OBJECT-COMPUTER
OCCURS
OF
OFF
OMITTED
ON
OPEN
OPTIONAL
OR
ORDER
ORGANIZATION
OTHER
OUTPUT
OVERFLOW
OVERRIDE
PACKED-DECIMAL
PADDING
PAGE
PAGE-COUNTER
PASSWORD
PERFORM
PF
PH
PIC
PICTURE
PLUS
POINTER
POSITION
POSITIVE
PRINTING
PROCEDURE
PROCEDURE-POINTER
PROCEDURES
PROCEED
PROCESSING
PROGRAM
PROGRAM-ID
PURGE
QUEUE
QUOTE
QUOTES
RANDOM
RD
READ
READY
RECEIVE
RECORD
RECORDING
RECORDS
RECURSIVE
REDEFINES
REEL
REFERENCE
REFERENCES
RELATIVE
RELEASE
RELOAD
REMAINDER
REMOVAL
RENAMES
REPLACE
REPLACING
REPORT
REPORTING
REPORTS
REPOSITORY
RERUN
RESERVE
RESET
RETURN
RETURN-CODE
RETURNING
REVERSED
REWIND
REWRITE
RF
RH
RIGHT
ROUNDED
RUN
SAME
SD
SEARCH
SECTION
SECURITY
SEGMENT
SEGMENT-LIMIT
SELECT
SELF
SEND
SENTENCE
SEPARATE
SEQUENCE
SEQUENTIAL
SERVICE
SET
SHIFT-IN
SHIFT-OUT
SIGN
SIZE
SKIP1
SKIP2
SKIP3
SORT
SORT-CONTROL
SORT-CORE-SIZE
SORT-FILE-SIZE
SORT-MERGE
SORT-MESSAGE
SORT-MODE-SIZE
SORT-RETURN
SOURCE
SOURCE-COMPUTER
SPACE
SPACES
SPECIAL-NAMES
STANDARD
STANDARD-1
STANDARD-2
START
STATUS
STOP
STRING
SUB-QUEUE-1
SUB-QUEUE-2
SUB-QUEUE-3
SUBTRACT
SUM
SUPER
SUPPRESS
SYMBOLIC
SYNC
SYNCHRONIZED
TABLE
TALLY
TALLYING
TAPE
TERMINAL
TERMINATE
TEST
TEXT
THAN
THEN
THROUGH
THRU
TIME
TIMES
TITLE
TO
TOP
TRACE
TRAILING
TRUE
TYPE
UNIT
UNSTRING
UNTIL
UP
UPON
USAGE
USE
USING
VALUE
VALUES
VARYING
WHEN
WHEN-COMPILED
WITH
WORDS
WORKING-STORAGE
WRITE
WRITE-ONLY
ZERO
ZEROES
ZEROS


COBOL (, an acronym for common business-oriented language) is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. COBOL is still widely used in legacy applications deployed on mainframe computers, such as large-scale batch and transaction processing jobs. But due to its declining popularity and the retirement of experienced COBOL programmers, programs are being migrated to new platforms, rewritten in modern languages or replaced with software packages. Most programming in COBOL is now purely to maintain existing applications. COBOL was designed in 1959 by CODASYL and was partly based on previous programming language design work by Grace Hopper, commonly referred to as "the (grand)mother of COBOL". It was created as part of a US Department of Defense effort to create a portable programming language for data processing. Intended as a stopgap, the Department of Defense promptly forced computer manufacturers to provide it, resulting in its widespread adoption. It was standardized in 1968 and has since been revised four times. Expansions include support for structured and object-oriented programming. The current standard is ISO/IEC 1989:2014. COBOL has an English-like syntax, which was designed to be self-documenting and highly readable. However, it is verbose and uses over 300 reserved words. In contrast with modern, succinct syntax like y = x;, COBOL has a more English-like syntax (in this case, MOVE x TO y). COBOL code is split into four divisions (identification, environment, data and procedure) containing a rigid hierarchy of sections, paragraphs and sentences. Lacking a large standard library, the standard specifies 43 statements, 87 functions and just one class. Academic computer scientists were generally uninterested in business applications when COBOL was created and were not involved in its design; it was (effectively) designed from the ground up as a computer language for business, with an emphasis on inputs and outputs, whose only data types were numbers and strings of text. COBOL has been criticized throughout its life, however, for its verbosity, design process and poor support for structured programming, which resulted in monolithic and incomprehensible programs.