ALTER Statement

The ALTER statement changes the destination of a GO TO statement.

General Format

ALTER { goto-proc TO [ PROCEED TO ] new-proc } ...

Syntax Rules

  1. goto-proc is the name of a paragraph consisting of a single GO TO statement without the DEPENDING phrase.
  2. new-proc is a procedure name.

General Rules

  1. The ALTER statement changes the destination of the GO TO statement in goto-proc.
  2. After execution of the ALTER statement, the GO TO in goto-proc causes control to transfer to new-proc.
  3. The ALTER verb has been declared an obsolete element of COBOL by the COBOL standards committee. It is recommended that instances of ALTER be replaced by the GO TO verb using the DEPENDING ON phrase.