IBM DOS/VS COBOL contains a reserved word, WHEN-COMPILED, that can be used as the source of a MOVE statement. The value copied into the destination or destinations is a string of the form MM/DD/YYhh.mm.ss, representing the time and date when the compilation began, where
| MM | is the month (01 = Jan., 02 = Feb., etc.) |
| DD | is the day (01 to 31, inclusive) |
| YY | is the year, modulo 100 (99 for 1999, 00 for 2000, 01 for 2001, etc.) |
| hh | is the hour, on a 24-hour clock (00-23) |
| mm | is the minute (00-59) |
| ss | is the second (00-59) |
ACUCOBOL-GT does the same when it is in the IBM DOS/VS COBOL compatibility mode. However, ACUCOBOL-GT also allows the programmer to use WHEN-COMPILED wherever a string constant can be used, not just as the source of a MOVE statement.