GCO2811

Commercial programming

S Suthaharan

6 points
* 4 hours per week
* First semester
* Gippsland and distance
* Prerequisite: GCO1811
* Prohibitions: BUS1042, BUS3522, SFT1122

Objectives Students completing this subject should understand top-down code development enhanced through the use of hierarchy and structure charts; understand the syntax of the COBOL language and develop a suitable solution, using both COBOL74 and COBOL85 to meet a written programming specification; be able to explain and implement in COBOL common batch commercial programming tasks: control break processing, sequential and non-sequential master file updating, report generation, sorting and merging; and be able to implement single and multi-dimensional arrays as COBOL tables and use these tables in practical situations and write interactive COBOL programs via the COBOL interactive input syntax and screen section.

Synopsis Overview of the COBOL language, use of the MicroFocus COBOL compiler, basic elements of COBOL; use of hierarchy charts, COBOL coding standards. The four divisions of a COBOL program and their characteristics. Arithmetic verbs, assumed decimal points, operators, if, perform, input/output, move; writing report programs - control breaks; debugging code; data validation. Tables: concept of tables, occurs clause, redefines clause; table processing. Sequential/binary table look up; COBOL search verb; collating sequences, the sort and merge verbs; the COBOL report writer; sequential and non-sequential file maintenance. Screen control under COBOL. Access to the university's computer systems via modem is compulsory for distance education students.

Assessment Programming assignments (3): 40%
* Examination (3 hours): 60%

Prescribed texts

Stern N and Stern R A Structured COBOL programming 8th edn, Wiley, 1997