IBM extensions generally add features, syntax, or rules that are not specified in the ANSI and ISO COBOL standards that are listed in Appendix H. Industry specifications. In this document, the term Standard COBOL 85 refers to those standards.
Extensions range from minor relaxation of rules to major capabilities, such as XML support, Unicode support, object-oriented COBOL for Java™ interoperability, and DBCS character handling.
The rest of this document describes the complete language without identifying extensions. You will need to review Appendix A. IBM extensions and the compiler options that are described in the COBOL for Windows Programming Guide if you want to use only standard language elements.