IBM Mainframe Forum

The COBOL Language Reference manual glossary entry:

* keyword
A reserved word or function-name whose presence is required when the format in which the word appears is used in a source unit.

Thanks enrico and Robert. I was thinking that if TS had used "keyword" I'd have bounced on them first, and then at some point in the future found it in the manual

I love that definition.

Maybe a hint there that they had to come up with "something" to call reserved words and function-names collectively - and they chose to "overload" keyword. I wonder if I can find an old Cobol-74 manual wth google...

Not exacly what you've asked for but worth a click, BillyBoyo: http://support.bull.com/ols/product/sys ... e02a06.pdf

Thanks Anuj. I was excited when it came up on google, then quickly disappointed when it turned out not to be the 32-year-old IBM manual... I guess it was a bit much to expect that manual to just pop up as a .PDF

As they say, You Can't Always Get What You Want ...

Thank you all. .
now i ve got some idea