The IDENTIFICATION DIVISION marks the beginning of a COBOL program. It also identifies a program and its source listing. Format - IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. program-name [IS {| INITIAL |} PROGRAM ][WITH IDENT id-str] . [ {| COMMON |} ] [ AUTHOR. [comment-entry] ... ] [ INSTALLATION. [comment-entry] ... ] [ DATE-WRITTEN. [comment-entry] ... ] [ DATE-COMPILED. [comment-entry] ... ] [ SECURITY. [comment-entry] ... ] [ OPTIONS. [ARITHMETIC {NATIVE|STANDARD}.] ]
1 – PROGRAM-ID
The PROGRAM-ID paragraph identifies a program. Format - PROGRAM-ID. program-name [IS {| INITIAL |} PROGRAM ][WITH IDENT id-str]. [ {| COMMON |} ]
1.1 – program-name
identifies a COBOL source program.
1.2 – id-str
identifies a literal string to be included in the object module generated by the compilation, for identification.
2 – AUTHOR
The AUTHOR paragraph is for documentation only. Format - AUTHOR. [comment-entry] ...
2.1 – comment-entry
Comment-entry can consist of any combination of characters from the computer character set. Comment-entries can span several lines in Area B. However, they cannot be continued by using a hyphen in the indicator area. The end of comment-entry is the line before the next entry in Area A.