Using constants
A constant is a data item that has only one
value. COBOL does not define a construct for constants. However, you
can define a data item with an initial value by coding
a VALUE clause in the data description (instead
of coding an INITIALIZE statement).
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Data Division.
01 Report-Header pic x(50) value "Company Sales Report".
. . .
01 Interest pic 9v9999 value 1.0265.
The example above initializes an alphanumeric and
a numeric data item. You can likewise use a VALUE clause
in defining a national or DBCS constant.