Conditional Compilation

The COBOL system provides a mechanism for selectively compiling part or all of the COBOL source. To benefit fully from the advantages of conditional compilation the use of level 78 (see the topic Level Number) and the CONSTANT Compiler directive is recommended. Conditional compilation is controlled by $IF, $ELSE, $END constructs, which behave in a similar way to the COBOL IF construct. Conditional compilation also supplies the $DISPLAY statement, which can be used to display a message during compilation or include a version number in the object file.

Syntax Rules

1. Conditional compilation statements are indicated by a dollar ($) in column 7 in fixed-format source, or column 1 in free-format source of the COBOL source line followed by one of the key words IF, DISPLAY, ELSE, END.
2. Conditional compilation should not be used to split a COBOL character string; that is, continuation lines should not be split by conditional compilation controls.
3. You cannot use include boolean data items in conditional compilation statements.