Procedure Division Overview
The Procedure Division is optional in a COBOL source program. The Procedure Division consists of optional declaratives, and procedures that contain sections and/or paragraphs, sentences, and statements.
The structure of the Procedure Division is as follows:
Execution begins with the first statement in the Procedure Division, excluding declaratives. Statements are executed in the order in which they are presented for compilation, unless the statement rules dictate some other order of execution.
The Procedure Division ends at the END PROGRAM header, before the beginning of the next COBOL source program, or at the physical end of the program. The physical end of the program is the physical position in a source program after which no further statements appear.