English

Noun

environment division ‎(plural environment divisions)

1. (computing) The part of a COBOL program that specifies the hardware on which it is designed to run, the symbolic names to be used by files, and certain other specifications

   1964 Franz Alt, "Advances in computers"

   The developers of Cobol made explicit recognition of this problem by providing an environment division for programs, into which as many as possible of the machine- dependent aspects of a process are collected.

   1999 Gordon Bitter Davis, "The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information"

   The environment division comprises two sections: the configuration section which holds information about the way in which a specific machine implements COBOL, and the input-output section, which describes external devices that will be accessed during execution of the program.

   2006 Knute Axelson, Mary Bellino, Dave Harper, "Coding: The Handbook for Information Technology"

   The environment division is the link between the COBOL program and the computer and input-output devices the program uses.

Usage notes

• The term is capitalized (as ENVIRONMENT DIVISION) in COBOL source code.