Editing COBOL (section)

=====Data manipulation=====
The following verbs manipulate data:
* {{code|INITIALIZE}}, which sets data items to their default values.
* {{code|MOVE}}, which [[assignment (computer science)|assigns]] values to data items ; ''MOVE CORRESPONDING'' assigns corresponding like-named [[Record (computer science)#COBOL|fields]].
* {{code|SET}}, which has 15 formats: it can modify indices, assign object references and alter table capacities, among other functions.{{sfn|ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4|2014|loc=§14.9.35.1}}
* {{code|ADD}}, {{code|SUBTRACT}}, {{code|MULTIPLY}}, {{code|DIVIDE}}, and {{code|COMPUTE}}, which handle arithmetic (with {{code|COMPUTE}} assigning the result of a formula to a variable).
* {{code|ALLOCATE}} and {{code|FREE}}, which handle [[dynamic memory]].
* {{code|VALIDATE}}, which validates and distributes data as specified in an item's description in the data division.
* {{code|STRING}} and {{code|UNSTRING}}, which [[Concatenation|concatenate]] and split [[string (computer science)|string]]s, respectively.
* {{code|INSPECT}}, which tallies or replaces instances of specified [[substring]]s within a string.
* {{code|SEARCH}}, which searches a table for the first entry satisfying a condition.

Files and tables are sorted using {{code|SORT}} and the {{code|MERGE}} verb merges and sorts files. The {{code|RELEASE}} verb provides records to sort and {{code|RETURN}} retrieves sorted records in order.