PROCESS Statement Rules

The following rules apply to the PROCESS statement:
  • The statement must be placed before the first source statement in the program immediately preceding the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION header.
  • The statement begins with the word PROCESS. Options can appear on more than one line; however, only the first line can contain the word PROCESS.
  • The word PROCESS and all options must appear within positions 8 through 72. Position 7 must be left blank. The remaining positions can be used as in COBOL source statements: positions 1 through 6 for sequence numbers, positions 73 through 80 for identification purposes.
  • The options must be separated by blanks and/or commas.
  • The options can appear in any order. If conflicting options are specified, for example, LIST and NOLIST, the last option encountered takes precedence
  • For any options with suboptions, if the option keyword is correct and the suboption is in error, the default suboption is assumed.