Preface

This manual is a comprehensive user's guide and reference to the Oracle Pro*COBOL Precompiler. It shows you how to develop COBOL programs that use the database languages SQL and PL/SQL to access and manipulate Oracle data. See Oracle Database SQL Language Reference and PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference for more information on SQL and PL/SQL.

This Preface contains these topics:

• Intended Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Related Documents

• Conventions

Intended Audience

The Pro*COBOL Programmer's Guide is intended for anyone developing new COBOL applications or converting existing applications to run in the Oracle9i environment. Written especially for programmers, this comprehensive treatment of Pro*COBOL will also be of value to systems analysts, project managers, and others interested in embedded SQL applications.

To use this manual effectively, you need a working knowledge of the following subjects:

• Applications programming in COBOL

• The SQL database language

• Oracle concepts and terminology

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Related Documents

For more information, see these Oracle resources:

• Oracle Database SQL Language Reference

• Oracle C++ Call Interface Programmer's Guide

• Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide

Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas of the seed database, which is installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this document: