Justified Clause

Justified Clause Example

Data Item Declaration Tutorial   

Scenario - Below example describes how the JUSTIFIED clause used in COBOL programming.

Code -

----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. RJUSTIFY.
       AUTHOR. MTH. 

       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

       01 WS-VAR        PIC X(15).
       01 WS-SM-VAR     PIC X(07). 
       01 WS-RJE-VAR    PIC X(15) JUSTIFIED RIGHT. 
       01 WS-RJL-VAR    PIC X(07) JUSTIFIED RIGHT.

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.

           MOVE "MAINFRAMES"    TO WS-VAR
                                   WS-SM-VAR 
                                   WS-RJE-VAR 
                                   WS-RJL-VAR.
 
           DISPLAY "WS-VAR     :"  WS-VAR ":". 
           DISPLAY "WS-SM-VAR  :"  WS-SM-VAR ":".
           DISPLAY "WS-RJE-VAR :"  WS-RJE-VAR ":".
           DISPLAY "WS-RJL-VAR :"  WS-RJL-VAR ":". 

           STOP RUN.

Output -

WS-VAR     :MAINFRAMES     :
WS-SM-VAR  :MAINFRA:
WS-RJE-VAR :     MAINFRAMES:
WS-RJL-VAR :NFRAMES:

Explaining Example -

In the above example:

  • "MAINFRAMES" string moved to all the variables. However, WS-SM-VAR, WS-RJL-VAR are smaller than the string assigned. So, WS-SM-VAR having value "MAINFRA" due to the default left justification and the truncation happens right side.
  • WS-RJL-VAR having "NFRAMES" due to the right justification and truncation happens at the left side.