Test Papers / Previous Question Papers of IGNOU CS03 File Structure and Programming in Cobol December 2001

PGDCA / MCA (I Yr) / BCA
Term-End Examination

December, 2001

CS03 : File Structure and Programming in Cobol

Time: 2 hours
Maximum Marks: 60

1. (a) A company has two types of employees : Full time and part time. The company stores the basic information such as name, address, age of all its employees. In addition, the information basic pay is stored for full time employees while daily wages are stored for part-time employees. Write the data division for the company. Please keep in mind that company wants to keep a single file for all its employees. Write procedure division for printing the employee details as a list (irrespective of full time or part time employee). The details will contain information relating to pay.

(b) A two dimensional table is to be represented in COBOL. Describe how it can be done, with an example. How can this table be searched for some specific value?

(c) Suggest an application where you would like to prefer relative file organisation than that of indexed sequential organisation. What are the various COBOL verbs used for relative organisation?

(d) "The best way to solve a problem is to modularise it." Comment on the above statement. How can modularisation be achieved in COBOL? De scribe with the help of an example.

(e) Why does COBOL have a working storage section? What are the various levels of working storage section? Give example of at least two.

2. Marks of students in various subjects. (maximum four) are kept in a Master file as:

 Student no.   9 Numeric digits
 Name    25 characters
 Subject 1 Marks   3 characters
 Subject 2 Marks   3 characters
 Subject 3 Marks   3 characters
 Subject 4 Marks   3 characters
 Key : Student no.

A transaction file of marks is created for various subjects as:

 student no.  9 Numeric digits
 subject code  1 digit (1, 2, 3 or 4)
 marks   3 characters

Write a program in COBOL to update the master file from the transaction file. Make suitable assumptions. In case a student no. in transaction file is not found in master then an error message should be produced. Select suitable file organisation.

3. Write a program in COBOL to create an indexed sequential file from a disk file. The format of the disk file is:

 emp_no  5 numeric digits
 emp_name  25 characters
 date_of_birth 8 characters
 basic_salary  8 numeric digits

Select the key of the file as emp_no. How will you list all the employee details who share a common date of birth? Make suitable assumptions, if any.

4. Describe the following COBOL verbs with the help of one example each:
(a) SET statement
(b) INVALID KEY clause
(c) Various formats of MOVE statement
(d) PERFORM statement with VARYING and GIVING options
(e) INSPECT statement

5. Write a program in COBOL to merge two files having the following format:
The format for both the files is :

 item_code  10 characters
 item_name  25 characters
 item_quantity  10 numeric digits

Please note the files may have an item whose item_code exists in both the files. In such case the item_quantity for that item should be added.