Industry specifications

Enterprise COBOL supports various industry standards.

  • ISO COBOL standards
    • ISO 1989:1985, Programming languages - COBOL

      ISO 1989:1985 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23-1985 (R2001), Programming Languages - COBOL

    • ISO/IEC 1989/AMD1:1992, Programming languages - COBOL: Intrinsic function module

      ISO/IEC 1989/AMD1:1992 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23a-1989 (R2001), Programming Languages - Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL

    • ISO/IEC 1989/AMD2:1994, Programming languages - Correction and clarification amendment for COBOL

      ISO/IEC 1989/AMD2:1994 is identical to ANSI INCITS 23b-1993 (R2001), Programming Language - Correction Amendment for COBOL

      All required modules are supported at the highest level defined by the standard.

      The following optional modules of the standard are supported:

      • Intrinsic Functions (1 ITR 0,1)
      • Debug (1 DEB 0,2)
      • Segmentation (2 SEG 0,2)

      The Report Writer optional module of the standard is supported with the optional IBM® COBOL Report Writer Precompiler and Libraries (5798-DYR).

      The following optional modules of the standard are not supported:

      • Communications
      • Debug (2 DEB 0,2)
    • ISO/IEC 1989:2002, Information technology - Programming languages - COBOL (partial support)

      ISO/IEC 1989:2002 is identical to ANSI INCITS 1989-2002 (R2013), Information technology - Programming languages COBOL

      For a list of 2002 COBOL Standard features that are implemented since Enterprise COBOL Version 3, see 2002/2014 COBOL Standard features implemented in Enterprise COBOL Version 3 or later versions.

    • Start of changeISO/IEC 1989:2014, Information technology - Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces - Programming language COBOL (partial support)

      ISO/IEC 1989:2014 is identical to ANSI INCITS 1989-2014, Information technology - Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces - Programming language COBOL

      End of change
  • ANSI COBOL standards
    • ANSI INCITS 23-1985 (R2001), Programming Languages - COBOL
    • ANSI INCITS 23a-1989 (R2001), Programming Languages - Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL
    • ANSI INCITS 23b-1993 (R2001), Programming Language - Correction Amendment for COBOL

      All required modules are supported at the highest level defined by the standard.

      The following optional modules of the standard are supported:

      • Intrinsic Functions (1 ITR 0,1)
      • Debug (1 DEB 0,2)
      • Segmentation (2 SEG 0,2)

      The following optional modules of the standard are not supported:

      • Communications
      • Debug (2 DEB 0,2)
    • ANSI INCITS 1989-2002 (R2013), Information technology - Programming languages COBOL (partial support)
    • Start of changeANSI INCITS 1989-2014, Information technology - Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces - Programming language COBOL (partial support)End of change
  • International Reference Version of ISO/IEC 646, 7-Bit Coded Character Set for Information Interchange
  • The 7-bit coded character set defined in American National Standard X3.4-1977, Code for Information Interchange

Enterprise COBOL has the following restriction related to COBOL standards:

  • OPEN EXTEND is not supported for ASCII-encoded tapes (CODE-SET STANDARD-1 or STANDARD-2).

See Option settings for 85 COBOL Standard conformance in the Enterprise COBOL Programming Guide for specification of the compiler options and Language Environment® runtime options that are required to support the above standards.