ILE COBOL Language Reference
In the Procedure Division, unless there is an explicit control
transfer or there is no
next executable statement,
program flow transfers control from statement to statement in the order in
which the statements are written. (See Note below.) This normal
program flow is an implicit transfer of control.
In addition to the implicit transfers of control between consecutive
statements, implicit transfer of control also occurs when the normal flow is
altered without the execution of a procedure branching statement. The
following examples show implicit transfers of control, overriding
statement-to-statement transfer of control:
- After execution of the last statement of a COBOL procedure being executed
under control of another COBOL statement, control implicitly transfers.
(COBOL statements that control COBOL procedure execution are, for
example: MERGE, PERFORM, SORT, and USE.)
- During SORT or MERGE statement execution, when control is implicitly
transferred to an INPUT or OUTPUT procedure.
- During execution of any COBOL statement that causes execution of a
declarative procedure, control is implicitly transferred to that
procedure.
- At the end of execution of any declarative procedure, control is
implicitly transferred back to the control mechanism associated with the
statement that caused its execution.
- When a program that has no procedure division or any nondeclarative
sections is called, the calling program issues an implicit EXIT
PROGRAM.
COBOL provides explicit control transfers through the execution
of any procedure branching or conditional statement.
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