Linux Notes: GnuCOBOL on Linux

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Edit: 2026-09-23

Back to: Linux Notes: GnuCOBOL

hello-world-free-format.cob

Notes:

• Compiling with the "-free" switch removes all indenting requirements, and moves the right column restriction from 72 to 511.
• The only hard rule is this: all classic COBOL remarks (eg. lines that begin with an asterisk) must be changed from "*" to "*>"
• Here, I retained left-margin indenting so that syntax coloring still works when editing via vim. But this program would compile properly if you removed all the left-side white-space.

      *> file   : hello-world-free-format.cob
      *> notes  : this is a free format COBOL demo
      *> build  : cobc -x -free hello-world-free-format.cob
      *> execute: ./hello-world-free-format
      *> history:
      *> when       who what
      *> 2023-02-14 NSR original effort
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. hello-world-classic.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       DISPLAY "Hello World!".
       STOP RUN.

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Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.