The DATA DIVISION of an instance method consists of any of the following four sections: FILE SECTION, LOCAL-STORAGE SECTION, WORKING-STORAGE SECTION, and LINKAGE SECTION.
If you specify the VALUE clause on a data item, the item is initialized to that value on each invocation of the method.
If you specify the VALUE clause on a data item, the item is initialized to that value on the first invocation of the method. You can specify the EXTERNAL clause for the data items.
If you define a data item with the same name in both the DATA DIVISION of an instance method and the DATA DIVISION of the OBJECT paragraph, a reference in the method to that data-name refers only to the method data item. The method DATA DIVISION takes precedence.
related tasks
Describing the data
Sharing data by using the EXTERNAL clause
related references
DATA DIVISION overview
(COBOL for Windows Language Reference)