Accessing Data on the Command Line from COBOL

You can use the following methods to enable a program to access and use data on the command line:

To move the complete contents of the command line to a data-name, use ACCEPT data-name FROM COMMAND-LINE. For example:

…
working-storage section.
01 cmdline pic x(100).
      
procedure division.
accept cmdline from command-line
…

To access individual arguments on the command line, use one of the following:
- DISPLAY ... UPON ARGUMENT-NUMBER
- ACCEPT ... FROM ARGUMENT-NUMBER

In managed COBOL, you can use the following construct:

    program-id. Program1.
    data division.
    Procedure division using by value cmds as string occurs any.
    Perform varying s as string thru CMDS
            Display s
           End-perform

Comments:

Only in native COBOL can you use the command_line_linkage run-time system tunable to have parameters passed to your main program.