Teach Yourself COBOL in 21 days

In this second edition of Teach Yourself COBOL in 21 Days, I have had a chance to correct errors from the first edition, expand on areas that needed elaboration, and write about many of the new and exciting things that are happening in the COBOL world. But most important to me, I have been able to act on the feedback that I have had from readers of the first edition. All of it was good, and all of it was helpful. There are way too many of you to thank. There were lots of little suggestions and a couple of major ones, and they all have been incorporated. I want to thank you all.This is my third project for Sams and Macmillan, and I want to thank Chris Denny for noticing that the first edition was climbing the sales charts and for realizing that it was time for a new edition.

I want to thank Heather Mlodinow, an accomplished COBOL programmer who reviewed the technical end of the first edition, and Lee Ann Phillips who reviewed the second edition. Lee Ann was a tough editor, but she was usually right, and I am particularly indebted to her for additional material on dates and calendars. Greg Adams, president of International Digital Scientific, Inc., also reviewed the dates chapters and provided helpful suggestions. All the Sams and Macmillan editors and crew have been terrific. Ryan Rader, Rich Alvey, Drew Cupp, Heather Butler, Mary Ann Abramson, Fran Hatton, and Gayle Johnson all gave excellent advice and encouragement.
Mostly, I want to thank my wife Helen, who was not only my first line editor, but the first guinea pig to take the course. In fact, all three of the trial students--Helen, Victoria St. James, and Colleen Lerian--were patient and capable and made it very easy to adjust the book to get it right for a newcomer to COBOL. The book is much better because of their efforts.
In order to do this job properly, I needed to get my hands on a great deal of software and hardware, and I want to thank Micro Focus Inc. for providing Micro Focus Personal COBOL and Micro Focus Professional COBOL, as well as a lot of encouragement.
Table Content:
* Introduction
* Day 1 - Your First COBOL Program
* Day 2 - Using Variables and Constants
* Day 3 - A First Look at Structured COBOL
* Day 4 - Decision Making
* Day 5 - Using PERFORM, GO TO, and IF to Control Programs
* Day 6 - Using Data and COBOL Operators
* Day 7 - Basics of Design
* Day 8 - Structured Data
* Day 9 - File I/O
* Day 10 - Printing
* Day 11 - Indexed File I/O
* Day 12 - More on Indexed Files
* Day 13 - Deleting Records and Other Indexed File Operations
* Day 14 - A Review of Indexed Files
* Day 15 - Data Integrity
* Day 16 - Using Look Up and Arrays
* Day 17 - Alternate Keys
* Day 18 - Calling Other Programs
* Day 19 - Complex Data Entry Problems
* Day 20 - More Complex Data Entry
* Day 21 - Selecting, Sorting, and Reporting
Book Link:
http://www.lacitec.on.ca/~jlemoe/Cobol/Materiel/Cobol/Manuel/index.htm