Editing COBOL (section)

===Hello, world===
A [["Hello, World!" program]] in COBOL:
<syntaxhighlight lang="cobol">
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. hello-world.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           DISPLAY "Hello, world!"
           .
</syntaxhighlight>

When the now famous "Hello, World!" program example in ''[[The C Programming Language]]'' was first published in 1978 a similar mainframe COBOL program sample would have been submitted through [[Job Control Language|JCL]], very likely using a punch card reader, and 80 column punch cards. The listing below, ''with an empty DATA DIVISION'', was tested using Linux and the System/370 [[Hercules emulator]] running [[MVS]] 3.8J. The JCL, written in July 2015, is derived from the Hercules tutorials and samples hosted by Jay Moseley.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.jaymoseley.com/hercules/compilers/cobol.htm | title=COBOL Compiler from MVT | date=17 January 2015 | access-date=19 July 2015 | first=Jay | last=Moseley}}</ref> In keeping with COBOL programming of that era, HELLO, WORLD is displayed in all capital letters.

<syntaxhighlight lang="cobolfree">
//COBUCLG  JOB (001),'COBOL BASE TEST',                                 00010000
//             CLASS=A,MSGCLASS=A,MSGLEVEL=(1,1)                        00020000
//BASETEST EXEC COBUCLG                                                 00030000
//COB.SYSIN DD *                                                        00040000
 00000* VALIDATION OF BASE COBOL INSTALL                                00050000
 01000 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.                                         00060000
 01100 PROGRAM-ID. 'HELLO'.                                             00070000
 02000 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.                                            00080000
 02100 CONFIGURATION SECTION.                                           00090000
 02110 SOURCE-COMPUTER.  GNULINUX.                                      00100000
 02120 OBJECT-COMPUTER.  HERCULES.                                      00110000
 02200 SPECIAL-NAMES.                                                   00120000
 02210     CONSOLE IS CONSL.                                            00130000
 03000 DATA DIVISION.                                                   00140000
 04000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.                                              00150000
 04100 00-MAIN.                                                         00160000
 04110     DISPLAY 'HELLO, WORLD' UPON CONSL.                           00170000
 04900     STOP RUN.                                                    00180000
//LKED.SYSLIB DD DSNAME=SYS1.COBLIB,DISP=SHR                            00190000
//            DD DSNAME=SYS1.LINKLIB,DISP=SHR                           00200000
//GO.SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=A                                               00210000
//                                                                      00220000
</syntaxhighlight>

After submitting the JCL, the MVS console displayed:

<syntaxhighlight lang="text" highlight="10">
    19.52.48 JOB    3  $HASP100 COBUCLG  ON READER1     COBOL BASE TEST
    19.52.48 JOB    3  IEF677I WARNING MESSAGE(S) FOR JOB COBUCLG  ISSUED
    19.52.48 JOB    3  $HASP373 COBUCLG  STARTED - INIT 1 - CLASS A - SYS BSP1
    19.52.48 JOB    3  IEC130I SYSPUNCH DD STATEMENT MISSING
    19.52.48 JOB    3  IEC130I SYSLIB   DD STATEMENT MISSING
    19.52.48 JOB    3  IEC130I SYSPUNCH DD STATEMENT MISSING
    19.52.48 JOB    3  IEFACTRT - Stepname  Procstep  Program   Retcode
    19.52.48 JOB    3  COBUCLG    BASETEST  COB       IKFCBL00  RC= 0000
    19.52.48 JOB    3  COBUCLG    BASETEST  LKED      IEWL      RC= 0000
    19.52.48 JOB    3  +HELLO, WORLD
    19.52.48 JOB    3  COBUCLG    BASETEST  GO        PGM=*.DD  RC= 0000
    19.52.48 JOB    3  $HASP395 COBUCLG  ENDED
</syntaxhighlight>

''Line 10 of the console listing above is highlighted for effect, the highlighting is not part of the actual console output''.

The associated compiler listing generated over four pages of technical detail and job run information, for the single line of output from the 14 lines of COBOL.