COBOL Interview Questions and Answers - DoAnswers.com

COBOL is a high-level programming language first developed by the CODASYL Committee (Conference on Data Systems Languages) in 1960. The word COBOL is an acronym that stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. As the the expanded acronym indicates, COBOL is designed for developing business, typically file-oriented, applications. It is not designed for writing systems programs. For instance you would not develop an operating system or a compiler using COBOL.The COBOL 2002 standard includes support for object-oriented programming and other modern language features.

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42. Read the following code. 01 ws-n pic 9(2) value zero. a-para move 5 to ws-n. perform b-para ws-n times. b-para. move 10 to ws-n. how many times will b-para be executed ?

43. The maximum number of dimensions that an array can have in COBOL-85 is ----------- ?

There are at least five differences: COBOL II supports structured programming by using in line Performs and explicit scope terminators, It introduces new features (EVALUATE, SET. TO TRUE, CALL. BY CONTEXT, etc) It permits programs to be loaded and addressed above the 16-megabyte line It does not support many old features (READY TRACE, REPORT-WRITER,ISAM, Etc.), and It offers enhanced CICS support.

OS/VS Cobol pgms can only run in 24 bit addressing mode, VS Cobol II pgms can run either in 24 bit or 31 bit addressing modes.Report writer is supported only in OS/VS Cobol.USAGE IS POINTER is supported only in VS COBOL II.Reference modification e.g.: WS-VAR(1:2) is supported only in VS COBOL II.EVALUATE is supported only in VS COBOL II.Scope terminators are supported only in VS COBOL II.OS/VS Cobol follows ANSI 74 stds while VS COBOL II follows ANSI 85 stds.Under CICS Calls between VS COBOL II programs are supported.

50. What are the steps you go through while creating a COBOL program executable?

DB2 precompiler (if embedded SQL used), CICS translator (if CICS pgm), Cobol compiler, Link editor. If DB2 program, create plan by binding the DBRMs.