COBOL Continue Statement Example

Conditional Statements Tutorial   

Scenario - Add 2000 to salary if it is less than 5000.

Input - 6000

Code -

----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. CONTINST.
       AUTHOR. MTH.
 
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01 WS-SALARY         PIC 9(04).

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
      * Accepting salary amount from input 
           ACCEPT WS-SALARY.
      * Salary is greater than 5000, Do Nothing 
           IF WS-SALARY GREATER THAN 5000
              NEXT SENTENCE
           END-IF
           COMPUTE WS-SALARY = WS-SALARY + 2000.
      * Displaying Salary
           DISPLAY "SALARY: " WS-SALARY. 
           STOP RUN.

Run JCL -

//MATESYD JOB MSGLEVEL=(1,1),NOTIFY=&SYSUID
//*
//STEP01  EXEC PGM=CONTINST
//STEPLIB  DD  DSN=MATESY.COBOL.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR 
//SYSOUT   DD  SYSOUT=*
//SYSIN    DD  *
6000
/*

Output -

SALARY: 6000

Explaining Example -

In the above example:

  • The input salary is 6000, which is greater than 5000. So, CONTINUE gets executed, and control transfers to the next statement in the flow (the DISPLAY statement).