Example: FILE-CONTROL paragraph

The following example shows how the FILE-CONTROL paragraph associates each file in the COBOL program with a physical file known to the file system. This example shows a FILE-CONTROL paragraph for an indexed file.


SELECT COMMUTER-FILE (1)
  ASSIGN TO COMMUTER (2)
  ORGANIZATION IS INDEXED (3)
  ACCESS IS RANDOM (4)
  RECORD KEY IS COMMUTER-KEY (5)
  FILE STATUS IS (5)
    COMMUTER-FILE-STATUS
    COMMUTER-STL-STATUS.
(1)
The SELECT clause associates a file in the COBOL program with a corresponding system file.
(2)
The ASSIGN clause associates the name of the file in the program with the name of the file as known to the system. COMMUTER might be the system file-name or the name of the environment variable whose runtime value is used as the system file-name with optional directory and path names.
(3)
The ORGANIZATION clause describes the organization of the file. If you omit this clause, ORGANIZATION IS SEQUENTIAL is assumed.
(4)
The ACCESS MODE clause defines the manner in which the records in the file are made available for processing: sequential, random, or dynamic. If you omit this clause, ACCESS IS SEQUENTIAL is assumed.
(5)
You might have additional statements in the FILE-CONTROL paragraph depending on the type of file and file system you use.