FILE-CONTROL Paragraph

The FILE-CONTROL paragraph associates each file in the COBOL program with an external medium, and specifies file organization, access mode, and other information.

The FILE-CONTROL paragraph begins with the word "FILE-CONTROL", followed by a separator period. It must contain one and only one entry for each file described in an FD or SD entry in the Data Division. Within each entry, the SELECT clause must appear first. The other clauses may appear in any order.

Each data-name must appear in a Data Division data description entry. Each data-name can be qualified but cannot be subscripted or indexed.

The FILE-CONTROL paragraph has five formats: