COBOL Environment Division















ENVIRONMENT DIVISION

This division contains two optional SECTIONS.   

1.  CONFIGURATION SECTION.
     Specifies the characteristics of your computer system. 

2.  INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
     Relates file names used in the program to the external file names.






CONFIGURATION SECTION 
 Describe the computer.  We are not providing more info on this SECTION as 
 many shops don’t use this SECTION.



INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION

In COBOL programs, we can process either sequential files OR VSAM files.  
Use the FILE-CONTROL paragraph to describe about your program files, associate 
them with external files where they physically reside. specify the information 
to efficiently transfer the data between program and files.






INPUTFL1 in SELECT statement is called physical file.  This is the way how program 
know the name of the actual file to be used.   Run JCL ( JCL which executes the 
program) contains the actual file name to be used.  To relate that file with the 
file in the program, physical file name will be used.

INPUTFILE in SELECT is called logical file name. Program uses this name while 
accessing the file.