Apuntes De Cobol

Frente a la creencia de que el  COBOL está en desuso, la realidad es que casi todos los sistemas que requieren gran capacidad de procesamiento por lotes (Batch), tanto las entidades bancarias como otras grandes empresas con sistemas mainframes utilizan COBOL.
Según un informe de Gartner Group de 2005, el 75% de los datos generados por negocios son procesados por programas creados en COBOL, y enotro informe de 1997 estima que el 80% de los 300.000 millones de líneas de código existentes están creados en COBOL, escribiéndose 5.000 millones de líneas nuevas de COBOL cada año. Así, hoy por hoy, la programación en COBOL es uno de los negocios más rentables del mundo de la informática.
la mayoría de los especialistas en Cobol se ha jubilado, lo que no significa que haya desaparecido lademanda. El conocimiento y la experiencia de las grandes empresas esta soportado por COBOL, pero, paradójicamente, cada vez hay menos especialistas en este lenguaje.

1.3.7 Figurative constants

Figurative constants are reserved words that name and refer to specific constant values. The reserved words for figurative constants and their meanings are:
ZERO, ZEROS,
ZEROES Represents thenumeric value zero (0) or one or more occurrences of the character zero, depending on context.
When the figurative constant ZERO, ZEROS, or ZEROES is used in a context that requires an alphanumeric character, an alphanumeric character zero is used. When the context requires a national character zero, a national character zero is used (value NX'0030'). When the context cannot be determined, analphanumeric character zero is used.
SPACE, SPACES
Represents one or more blanks or spaces. SPACE is treated as an alphanumeric literal when used in a context that requires an alphanumeric character, as a DBCS literal when used in a context that requires a DBCS character, and as a national literal when used in a context that requires a national character. The EBCDIC DBCS space character hasthe value X'4040', and the national space character has the value NX'0020'.
HIGH-VALUE,
HIGH-VALUES Represents one or more occurrences of the character that has the highest ordinal position in the collating sequence used.

| HIGH-VALUE is treated as an alphanumeric literal in a context
| that requires an alphanumeric character. For alphanumeric data
| with the EBCDICcollating sequence, the value is X'FF'. For
| other alphanumeric data, the value depends on the collating
| sequence in effect.
HIGH-VALUE is treated as a national literal when used in a
| context that requires a national literal. The value is national
| character NX'FFFF'.

| When the context cannot be determined, an alphanumeric context
| isassumed and the value X'FF' is used.

| Usage note:You should not use HIGH-VALUE (or a value assigned
| from HIGH-VALUE) in a way that results in conversion between one
| data representation and another. X'FF' does not represent a
| valid EBCDIC character, and NX'FFFF' does not represent a valid
| national character. Conversion of either the alphanumeric or the| national HIGH-VALUE representation to another representation
| results in a substitution character. For example, conversion of
| X'FF' to UTF-16 would give a substitution character, not
| NX'FFFF'.
LOW-VALUE,
LOW-VALUES Represents one or more occurrences of the character that has the lowest ordinal position in the collating sequence used.

| LOW-VALUE istreated as an alphanumeric literal in a context
| that requires an alphanumeric character. For alphanumeric data
| with the EBCDIC collating sequence, the value is X'00'. For
| other alphanumeric data, the value depends on the collating
| sequence in effect.

| LOW-VALUE is treated as a national literal when used in a
| context that requires a national...