COBOL VERBS - DIVIDE
















DIVIDE Verb

  DIVIDE statement divide one number by another and store the result.


  Format 1.
   DIVIDE  < literal-1 / data-item-1 >    INTO  data-item-1...

  
  Format 2.
  
    DIVIDE  < literal-1 / data-item-1 >   INTO  < literal-2 / data-item-2 >
             GIVING  data-item-3... REMAINDER data-item-4...

    

  Examples - 

  (a)  DIVIDE  WS-A  INTO  WS-B.

  Above example is equals to WS-B = WS-B / WS-A.  WS-B value is divided by WS-A and the result will be stored in WS-B.


  (b)  DIVIDE  WS-A  INTO WS-B GIVING WS-C.

  Above example is equals to WS-C = WS-B / WS-A.  WS-B value is divided by WS-A and the result will be stored in WS-C.
  No change to WS-B, WS-A values.


  (c)  DIVIDE  WS-A  INTO WS-B  GIVING WS-C REMAINDER WS-D.
  
  This statement very similar to example (b), except using REMAINDER word.  after dividing WS-B by WS-A remainder value
  will be stored in WS-D.

  WS-A value is  100
  WS-B value is  350

     100 ) 350 ( 3  <--- This value will be moved to WS-C.
           300
           ----
            50      <--- Remainder, this value will be moved to WS-D.
           ----
  

Using BY instead of INTO....

we can use INTO instead of BY  in the above format2.  But, make sure that values/data-items used for calcualtion 
needs to be exchanged to get the same result. 

example (b) can be rewrite using word BY  , to get same result in WS-C, need to swap WS-B, WS-A places. 
i.e, state should look like     DIVIDE  WS-B BY WS-A GIVING WS-C.  equals  WS-C = WS-B / WS-A.