The Date-Compiled Paragraph
The Date-Compiled paragraph provides the date the intermediate code was produced in the Identification Division source program
listing.
General Format
Directives
- In addition to Compiler directives which provide flagging and modify the reserved word list, the following directives may
impact either the syntax or semantics described in this section.
- DATE - impacts the format in which the date is printed in this paragraph.
Syntax Rules
- The comment-entry can be any combination of the characters from the computer's character set. The continuation of the comment entry by use of the hyphen is not permitted; however, the comment entry can be contained on one or more lines. The comment-entry lines must be contained in area B. The next line commencing in area A will begin the next non-comment paragraph.
General Rules
- The paragraph-name DATE-COMPILED causes your COBOL system to insert a date comment-entry as the executable code is created.
If a Date-Compiled paragraph is present (with or without a comment-entry), the paragraph is replaced in the program listing
with one of the form:
DATE-COMPILED. current-date-and-time .
where the date and time format is DD-MMM-YY hh:mm .
The DATE Compiler directive can impact the comment-entry replacement string for your COBOL implementation.
The value inserted in the Date-Compiled paragraph is also the value used in the WHEN-COMPILED intrinsic function. However, the format can differ.