Example of Accept statement:

For illustration, ACCEPT FLAG-A can be specified to read the value of the FLAG_A from the console. It may be keep in mind that no file definition is essential.

The mnemonic-name option is an implementer-dependent. The hardware machine from which the data is to be read is to be equated to the mnemonic name in the SPECIAL-NAME APARAGRAPH. For illustration, the following entry in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph TYPEWRITER-1 IS CONTROL-DATA may associate the mnemonic name CONTROL-DATA with the supposed implementor-name TYPEWRITER-1. 

The ACCEPT FLAG-1 FROM CONTROL-DATA 

will read the value of the FLAG-A from the hardware device specified by the TYPEWRITER-1.

The DATE, DAY & TIME options are some of the new features introduced in the ANSI 74 COBOL. 

The DAY option returns the 6-digit present date in the form YYMMDD where YY, MM and DD stand for year, month & day respectively. The DAY option returns a 5-digit present date in the form YYDDD where YY stands for the year and DDD stands for the day of the year (001 to 365). The TIME returns an 8 -digit time in the form of HHMMSSTT where HH, MM, SS, TT specifies hour, minute, second & hundreds of a second respectively. For all the 3 options, the returned value is transferred to the identifier (in the ACCEPT statement) according to the rules of the MOVE statement. For illustration,

ACCEPT THIS-DAY FROM DATE 

will transfer the value of the present date to the THIS-DAY.