SUMMARY:   Suitable for the BCS Mainframe Technology professional Exams for level 1 Developer AUDIENCE:   Application programmers with some experience in COBOL who want formal training in the advanced language features and programming techniques. PREREQUISITES:   Attending our COBOL Programming Part 1 course or equivalent knowledge is assumed. DURATION:   5 days. Hands on. OBJECTIVES:   This class is designed for students to improve their knowledge of COBOL tools. Each student will write, execute and debug COBOL programs that stress the advanced features of COBOL. This will include multi-dimensional and variable length tables, multi-program and sub-program calls, and VSAM file manipulation. Sorting, merging and programming standards and style will be addressed. COURSE CONTENT:   Review of COBOL Concepts What is COBOL programming? How does it fit in the environment? Basic terms and language structure Programming fundamentals COBOL ground rules JCL concepts Advanced COBOL Logic Compound IF statement IF logic guidelines The NOT statement Condition names 88-Levels The SET statement for condition names Testing for blank numeric fields COBOL 85 changes Control Break Logic Concepts One-Level control breaks Two-Level control breaks Page overflow Error testing Table Processing Sequential tables The SEARCH statement The PERFORM VARYING statement Variable length tables The SEARCH ALL statement Multi-dimensional tables COBOL Sort and Merge Basic SORT requirements The SELECT and SD statements The SORT statement USING and GIVING options Basic MERGE requirements Sorting table entries Other sort logic VSAM File Concepts File structures KSDS files ESDS files RRDS files Alternate indexes VSAM Processing Statements The INPUT-OUTPUT section The FILE section The OPEN and CLOSE statements The READ statement The WRITE statement Programming VSAM Files File status Random processing Sequential processing Relative record processing Multi-Programming Program linkage Entry points Passing data between programs Nested programs The CALL statement Debugging COBOL Programs Concepts Types of errors Debugging mode The STATE option Storage dumps Summary COBOL future Structured programming in COBOL COBOL 85 and the future WORKSHOPS: Workshops in this course are conducted in a hands-on environment. Delegates will code, execute and debug a series of programs serving as excellent examples of the advanced features of COBOL.