Environment Setup in COBOL Language

Installing COBOL Language on Windows/Linux

To install the COBOL programming language on both Windows and Linux, you can use the GnuCOBOL compiler, which is an open-source

ef="https://piembsystech.com/cobol-language/">COBOL compiler. Here’s how you can install it on both operating systems:

On Windows:

• Install Cygwin (if you don’t have it already):

• Visit the Cygwin website (https://www.cygwin.com/).
• Download the setup executable for your system (32-bit or 64-bit).
• Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
• When you reach the “Select Packages” screen during installation, search for “cobol” and select the “gnucobol” package.
• Complete the installation process.

• Verify the installation:

• Open a Cygwin terminal.
• Type cobc -V and press Enter. This command should display the version information for the GnuCOBOL compiler, indicating that it’s installed.

On Linux:

• Open a Terminal:
  Open your terminal application. Depending on your Linux distribution, you can use different package managers to install GnuCOBOL.
• Install GnuCOBOL:

• On Debian/Ubuntu-based systems, use apt: sudo apt update sudo apt install open-cobol
• On Red Hat/Fedora-based systems, use dnf: sudo dnf install open-cobol
• On other Linux distributions, use the package manager specific to your system to install GnuCOBOL.

• Verify the installation:

• In your terminal, type cobc -V and press Enter. This command should display the version information for the GnuCOBOL compiler, indicating that it’s installed.

Once you have GnuCOBOL installed, you can start writing and compiling COBOL programs on both Windows and Linux.

Here’s a simple example to test your COBOL installation:

Create a file named hello.cob with the following code:

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. HelloWorld.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    DISPLAY 'Hello, World!'.
    STOP RUN.

To compile and run the program:

cobc -x -o hello hello.cob
./hello