PROCEDURE DIVISION

This contains the verbs (instructions) defined in procedures. The following are the different type of instructions.
  1. Input/Output verbs. OPEN, READ, WRITE, ACCEPT, DISPLAY, REWRITE, CLOSE.
  2. Arithmatic Verbs. ADD, SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, DIVIDE, COMPUTE.
  3. Data manipulation verbs. MOVE, INSPECT, TRANSFORM, STRING, UNSTRING.
  4. Sequence Control verbs. GO TO, GO TO.... DEPENDING ON, ALTER, PERFORM, STOP.
  5. Conditional verbs. IF, EVALUATE, SEARCH.
The actual instructions (verbs) used for the manipulation of data is done in this DIVISION. This is most important and last part of the program.

NOTE:-

1), 2), 3), 4), are imperative statements, and 5) is conditional statement. All these statements must be defined in Area-B.

COBOL STRUCTURE