COBOL Accept Statement

COBOL ACCEPT Statement:

Accept statement in COBOL with examples – It is used to receive the data that has been sent from outside of that program. Data can be sent from any Terminal or from JCL or from system defined items like date functions. ACCEPTING multiple records from input is also possible.

Accepting Data from JCL using ACCEPT:

Input data should be given in SYSIN DD as an in-stream data and in the cobol program it should be accepted.

JCL:

//SYSIN DD * 
MAHENDER 
/* 
//

COBOL:

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 
01 WK-INPUT. 
   05 WK-INP-1 PIC X(10) VALUE SPACES. 

PROCEDURE DIVISION. 
ACCEPT WK-INPUT. 
DISPLAY 'WK-INPUT>'WK-INPUT 
STOP RUN.

So it Accepts the data from SYSIN and transfers it in to the working storage variable WW-INPUT.

Accepting MULTIPLE RECORDS from JCL using ACCEPT:

Multiple records can be passed from JCL via SYSIN and can be processed them in the program.

Example:

JCL:

//SYSIN DD * 
MAHENDER 
REDDY 
/* 
//

COBOL:

01 WS-INPUT. 
   05 WS-INP1 PIC X(10) VALUE SPACES
   05 WS-INP2 PIC X(10) VALUE SPACES

PROCEDURE DIVISION. 
ACCEPT 
ACCEPT WS-INPUT. 
DISPLAY 'INP-ONE--'WS-INP1 
DISPLAY 'INP TWO--'WS-INP2 
DISPLAY 'INP THR--'WS-INPUT 
STOP RUN.

Result:
As we have used WS-INPUT in the accept verb, it has not received the full data.

INP-ONE--MAHENDER 
INP-TWO-- 
INP-THR--MAHENDER

This can be achieved by using multiple ACCEPT statements

ACCEPT WS-INP1 
DISPLAY '1ST DISPLY--'WS-INP1 
DISPLAY '2ND DISPLY--'WS-INP2 
ACCEPT WS-INP2 
DISPLAY '1ST DISPLY--'WS-INP1 
DISPLAY '2ND DISPLY--'WS-INP2

Result:

1ST DISPLY--MAHENDER 
2ND DISPLY-- 
1ST DISPLY--MAHENDER 
2ND DISPLY--REDDY 

Above method works fine, if the number of records being passed to COBOL program are known but if it not known, then it fails.
So in that case, an EOF record should be given in the data at the end of the input stream to recognize the end of data after every ACCEPT it should be checked as below

Example:

JCL:

//SYSIN DD * 
MAHENDER 
REDDY 
VISWA 
KALLU 
*** 
/* 
//

COBOL:

01 WW-INPT. 
   05 WW-INP1 PIC X(10) VALUE SPACES. 

01 WS-EOF-FLAG PIC X(01) VALUE SPACES. 
   88 WS-END-OF-INP VALUE 'Y'. 

PROCEDURE DIVISION. 

PERFORM UNTIL WS-END-OF-INP 
   MOVE SPACES TO WW-INP1 
   ACCEPT WW-INP1 
   IF WW-INP1 = '***' 
      SET WS-END-OF-INP TO TRUE 
   ELSE 
      DISPLAY 'INPT-->' WW-INP1 
   END-IF 
END-PERFORM 
STOP RUN.

Result:

INPT--MAHENDER 
INPT--REDDY 
INPT--VISWA 
INPT--KALLU

Accepting DATE TIME data:

Different Date and Time data stored in the system can be accepted.

1. ACCEPT WW-DATE FROM DATE –> it gives the 6 digit data in YYMMDD format.
   Ex:190528
2.  ACCEPT WW-DATE1 FROM DATE YYYYMMDD
   Ex: 20190528
3. ACCEPT WW-DAY FROM DAY –> first two digits represents the Year and next three day number. May 28 is represented here as 148
   Ex: 19148
4. Year can be formatted as Four digit year with below
   ACCEPT WW-DAY FROM DAY YYYYDDD
   ex: 2019148
5. ACCEPT WW-DAYWK FROM DAY-OF-WEEK –> It gives the Day in that week. 1 for Monday, 2 for Tuesday and so on.
6. ACCEPT WW-TIME FROM TIME – Gives the time in HHMMSSmm