Area A

Certain items must begin in Area A.

These items are:

Division headers
Section headers
Paragraph headers or paragraph names
Level indicators or level-numbers (01 and 77)
DECLARATIVES and END DECLARATIVES
End program, end class, and end method markers

Division headers
A division header is a combination of words, followed by a separator period to indicate the beginning of a division.
Section headers
In the environment and procedure divisions, a section header indicates the beginning of a series of paragraphs.
Paragraph headers or paragraph names
A paragraph header or paragraph name indicates the beginning of a paragraph.
Level indicators (FD and SD) or level-numbers (01 and 77)
A level indicator can be either FD or SD.
DECLARATIVES and END DECLARATIVES
DECLARATIVES and END DECLARATIVES are keywords that begin and end the declaratives part of the source unit.
End program, end class, and end method markers
The end markers are a combination of words followed by a separator period that indicates the end of a COBOL program, method, class, factory, or object definition.

Parent topic: Reference format