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  COBOL TUTORIAL FOR BCA STUDENTS OF M G UNIVERSITY  
  UNIT 3: INTRODUCTION TO COBOL . . .  
   
  IDENTIFICATION AND ENVIRONMENT DIVISION  
     
 

The IDENTIFICATION AND ENVIRONMENT DIVISION are the first two leading divisions of any COBOL program. These divisions contain entries that are required to either identify the program or describe the computer system to be used for the compilation and execution of the program. Generally, the entries in these divisions are used only for documentation purposes.

 
  IDENTIFICATION DIVISION  
     
  The IDENTIFICATION DIVISION is the first division of every COBOL source program. The paragraph PROGRAM-ID is essential in most of the machines. The other paragraphs are optional.

The structure of Identification division is given below:

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. Entry
[AUTHOR. entry.]
[INSTALLATION. entry.]
[DATE-WRITTEN. entry.]
[DATA-COMPILED. entry.]
[SECURITY. entry.]
[REMARKS. entry.]

The division heading and paragraph names should be coded as margin A entries. The entries following the paragraph headings must be terminated by a period. The entry in the PROGRAM-ID paragraph contains the program name to be used to identify the object program.

The entries in the other paragraphs are normally treated as comments and the programmer is free to write anything for these entries. Only meaningful entries should be included in these places to provide better documentation and clarity. The entry for the AUTHOR paragraph may include the name of the programmer. The entry of the DATE-COMPILED paragraph may contain the date of compilation. If this entry is left blank, the compiler inserts the actual date in the listing of the source program that may be printed during compilation.