Statements

A statement is a COBOL key word (called a verb) followed by its operands. A statement directs either the compiler or the object program to take some action. There are four types of COBOL statements:

1. Compiler-directing statements specify an action to be taken by the Compiler. Only COPY, REPLACE, and USE statements fit this classification.
2. Imperative statements specify an unconditional action to be taken by the object program at run-time. Whenever an imperative statement is allowed, it may consist of a sequence of consecutive imperative statements.
3. Conditional statements specify an action to be taken by the object program that is dependent on the truth value of some condition.
4. Delimited-scope statements specify their explicit scope terminator. This scope terminator always has "END-" as the first four letters of its word. A delimited-scope statement contains elements of a conditional nature. Because of the scope-delimiter, however, these statements may be used anywhere an imperative statement may be.