Indicator area
Use the indicator area to specify the continuation of words or alphanumeric literals from the previous line onto the current line, the treatment of text as documentation, and debugging lines.
See Continuation lines, Comment lines, and Debugging lines.
The
indicator area can be used for source listing formatting. A slash
(/) placed in the indicator column causes the compiler
to start a new page for the source listing, and the corresponding
source record to be treated as a comment. The effect can be dependent
on the LINECOUNT compiler option. For information about the LINECOUNT
compiler option, see LINECOUNT in
the COBOL for Linux® on x86 Programming Guide.