Imperative Statement

An imperative statement indicates a specific unconditional action to be taken . An imperative statement is any statement that is neither a conditional statement nor a COBOL system-directing statement. An imperative statement can consist of a sequence of imperative statements, each possibly separated from the next by a separator.

The imperative verbs are:

ACCEPT (1)
ADD (2)
ALTER
CALL (4)
CANCEL
CLOSE
COMPUTE (2)
DELETE (3)
DISPLAY (1)
DIVIDE (2)

EXIT
GO TO
INSPECT
MERGE
MOVE
MULTIPLY (2)
OPEN
PERFORM
READ (5)
RELEASE

REWRITE (3)
SET
SORT
START (3)
STOP
STRING (4)
SUBTRACT (2)
UNSTRING (4)
WRITE (6)

1	Without the optional ON EXCEPTION phrase.
2	Without the optional SIZE ERROR phrase.
3	Without the optional INVALID KEY phrase.
4	Without the optional ON OVERFLOW or ON EXCEPTION phrase.
5	Without the optional AT END phrase or INVALID KEY phrase.
6	Without the optional INVALID KEY phrase or END-OF-PAGE phrase.

The additional ANSI'85 imperative verbs are:

CONTINUE

INITIALIZE

The additional ISO 2002 imperative verb is:

INVOKE

The additional OS/VS COBOL imperative verbs are:

EXAMINE
EXHIBIT

GOBACK

TRANSFORM

The additional VS COBOL II imperative verb is:

GOBACK

The additional imperative verbs available to this COBOL system are:

CHAIN
EXHIBIT

GOBACK

NEXT SENTENCE

When "imperative-statement" appears in the general format of statements, "imperative-statement" refers to that sequence of consecutive imperative statements that must be ended by a period or by any phrase associated with a statement containing that "imperative-statement".

Either the connective word "THEN" or the connective word "AND" can optionally be placed between any two imperative statements which appear in a single sequence of imperative statements.