COBOL- EXAMINE

• INSPECT and EXAMINE are used to perform same operations
• EXAMINE was present in the earlier version of COBOL and was replaced in ANSI 74 COBOL with more powerful verb INSPECT
• However, many implementation still uses EXAMINE and thus we are covering it at high level
• It is suggested to use INSPECT instead of EXAMINE
• Basic syntax:-
  EXAMINE identifier-1 TALLYING [{ALL/LEADING/UNTIL FIRST} literal-1] REPLACING [{ALL/LEADING/[UNTIL] FIRST} literal-1]

• In EXAMINE, when TALLYING is used, count is stored in a register called TALLY
• Example:-
  In DATA DIVISION,
  01 WS-STRING PIC X(17) VALUE ‘MAINFRAME-IS-BEST’.
  In PROCEDURE DIVISION,
  EXAMINE WS-STRING TALLYING ALL ‘-‘ RELACING BY ‘ ‘
  Result: WS-STRING will contain ‘MAINFRAME IS BEST’ and TALLY Register will contain ‘2’
  Reason: There are total ‘2’ occurrences of ‘-‘ replaced by ‘ ‘(space)