Identifying a program

Use the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION to name a program and optionally provide other identifying information.

About this task

You can use the optional AUTHOR, INSTALLATION, DATE-WRITTEN, and DATE-COMPILED paragraphs for descriptive information about a program. The data you enter in the DATE-COMPILED paragraph is replaced with the latest compilation date.


IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
Program-ID.    Helloprog.
Author.        A. Programmer.
Installation.  Computing Laboratories.
Date-Written.  06/30/2020.
Date-Compiled. 07/05/2020.

Use the PROGRAM-ID paragraph to name your program. The program-name that you assign is used in these ways:

  • Other programs use that name to call your program.
  • The name appears in the header on each page, except the first, of the program listing that is generated when you compile the program.
Tip: If a program-name is case sensitive, avoid mismatches with the name that the compiler is looking for. Verify that the appropriate setting of the PGMNAME compiler option is in effect.

Related references  

Conventions for program-names (COBOL for Linux® on x86 Language Reference)