Content area
The growing trend in data processing towards structured programming and the importance of COBOL as a business oriented programming language indicate that there is a need to investigate aspects of structured programming in COBOL. Such a study is the subject matter of this thesis.
The main topic of the thesis is the formulation of a general theory for structuring of programs, and a practical implementation of this in the form of an automatic COBOL restructuring system.
The thesis, also includes the results of an investigation on structured programming in COBL. In this study the inadequacies of the language with respect to structured programming are examined, simulation of structured programming in today’s COBOL is discussed and the possible syntax of new enhanced COBOLs is analysed.
An analysis of the structure of COBOL programs and potential for unstructuredness in COBOL forms another part of the thesis. In this part several transformation methods for the removal of unstructuredness features are presented.
The results of an experiment with the COBOL restructuring system and a discussion on these results concludes the study.