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From: William M. Klein on 9 Jul 2008 13:20
As a sort-of follow-up to both the END-PERFORM and EVALUATE threads, I just
thought that I would mention exactly HOW limited the use of "conditional"
statements are in Standard-conforming (ANSI/ISO - any year) COBOL source code
is:

A conditional statement may be used:

1) at the end of a series of statements within a sentence. (It may be preceded
by 0-n imperative statements, but MUST be followed by a period/full-stop).

2) Within either the IF or ELSE phrases of an IF statement.

3) (sort-of) When actually considered as an imperative statement because it is
terminated by its scope-terminator.

***

Other than that, standard-conforming source code ALWAYS requires imperative
statement. This is why the addition of scope-terminators in the '85 Standard so
SIGNIFICANTLY increased the use of conditional-statements (that were turned into
imperative statements).

--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com


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