Illustration of Multiply verb:

(a)  MULTIPLY A BY B.

In this situation the value of A & B will be multiplied and the product will be stored in B.  The decimal point location will automatically be taken care of. The older value of B will be lost.

(b)  MULTIPLY A BY B GIVING C.

In this Verb the value of A & B will be multiplied and the product will be stored in C. The older value of C will be lost but B will hold its old value.

(c)  MULTIPLY A BY B C D.

In this Verb B will be multiplied by A and the result will be stored in B. Likewise, C will be multiplied by A and the product will be stored in C and the result of the multiplication of D and A will be stored in D.

(d)  MULTIPLY A BY B C GIVING D E.

In this situation the product of B & A will be stored in D, while the product of C and A will be stored in E.

In the situation of the MULTIPLY statement also, the literals cannot be used for identifier-2, Identifier-3, etc. Though, if the GIVING option is used, the numeric literals are also permitted in place of the identifier-2, identifier-3, etc.  For illustration,

MULTIPLY  TAX  BY .05  GIVING  TAX-BASE.