Extra and misplaced periods in COBOL source

You must remove extra or misplaced periods in the fixed-format source.

When you use IBM® COBOL for Linux® on x86 to compile source code that contains extra and misplaced periods, you will receive the error messages in the following example:

$ cat tcPeriods.cbl
000010 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000020 PROGRAM-ID. TEST-CASE.
000030 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000040 DATA DIVISION.
000050
000060 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000070     PERFORM GREETING.
000080    .
000090
000100     STOP RUN.
000110
000120 GREETING.
000130 . 
000140
000150     DISPLAY "HELLO FROM IBM.".

$ cob2 -o tcPeriods tcPeriods.cbl
IBM COBOL for Linux 1.2.0 compile started
0LineID  Message code  Message text
      8  IGYPS0019-W   No COBOL statement was found between periods.                         
                       Same message on line:     13
-Messages    Total    Informational    Warning    Error    Severe    Terminating
0Printed:       2                          2                                
End of compilation 1,  program TEST-CASE,  highest severity: Warning.
Return code 4

According to Standard COBOL 2002, fixed-format source cannot include extra or missing periods in the source.

Change your COBOL source to follow Standard COBOL 2002, or use scu to remove extra and misplaced periods:
$ cat sol-tcPeriods.cbl
000010 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000020 PROGRAM-ID. TEST-CASE.
000030 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000040 DATA DIVISION.
000050
000060 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000070     PERFORM GREETING.
000080
000090
000100     STOP RUN.
000110
000120 GREETING.
000130
000140
000150     DISPLAY "HELLO FROM IBM.".