COBOL
E204900
COBOL is a long-established, English-like programming language primarily used for business, finance, and administrative systems on mainframes and enterprise platforms.
All labels observed (20)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| COBOL canonical | 63 |
| COBOL programming language | 5 |
| COBOL 2002 | 3 |
| COBOL 85 | 2 |
| Common Business-Oriented Language | 2 |
| ANSI COBOL | 1 |
| ANSI COBOL standards | 1 |
| ANSI X3.23 COBOL | 1 |
| COBOL (via ICL toolchain) | 1 |
| COBOL (via LE and callable services) | 1 |
| COBOL 2014 | 1 |
| COBOL English-like verbs | 1 |
| COBOL language specification | 1 |
| COBOL on VMS | 1 |
| COBOL on z/OS | 1 |
| COBOL-68 | 1 |
| COBOL-74 | 1 |
| COBOL-85 | 1 |
| ISO/IEC COBOL standard series | 1 |
| RM/COBOL | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1817757 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: COBOL Context triple: [IBM i, supportsLanguage, COBOL]
-
A.
PL/I
PL/I is a high-level programming language developed by IBM in the 1960s that combines features from scientific, business, and systems programming languages into a single, general-purpose language.
-
B.
BCPL
BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) is an early, typeless systems programming language developed in the 1960s that significantly influenced the design of the C programming language.
-
C.
Fortran
Fortran is a high-level programming language, particularly strong in numerical and scientific computing, widely used for engineering, physics, and high-performance applications.
-
D.
Algol 68
Algol 68 is a high-level, structured programming language from the ALGOL family, notable for its orthogonal design and influence on many later languages.
-
E.
ABC programming language
ABC is an early high-level, interactive programming language developed at CWI that emphasized readability and simplicity, and later influenced the design of Python.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: COBOL Target entity description: COBOL is a long-established, English-like programming language primarily used for business, finance, and administrative systems on mainframes and enterprise platforms.
-
A.
PL/I
PL/I is a high-level programming language developed by IBM in the 1960s that combines features from scientific, business, and systems programming languages into a single, general-purpose language.
-
B.
BCPL
BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) is an early, typeless systems programming language developed in the 1960s that significantly influenced the design of the C programming language.
-
C.
Fortran
Fortran is a high-level programming language, particularly strong in numerical and scientific computing, widely used for engineering, physics, and high-performance applications.
-
D.
Algol 68
Algol 68 is a high-level, structured programming language from the ALGOL family, notable for its orthogonal design and influence on many later languages.
-
E.
ABC programming language
ABC is an early high-level, interactive programming language developed at CWI that emphasized readability and simplicity, and later influenced the design of Python.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (53)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
high-level programming language
ⓘ
procedural programming language ⓘ programming language ⓘ |
| abbreviationOf |
Common Business-Oriented Language
ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
|
| backwardCompatibility | strong emphasis ⓘ |
| designedBy | CODASYL ⓘ |
| designedFor |
administrative systems
ⓘ
business applications ⓘ finance applications ⓘ |
| designGoal |
portability across systems
ⓘ
readability by non-programmers ⓘ |
| executionModel | compiled language ⓘ |
| fileExtension |
.cbl
ⓘ
.cob ⓘ .cobol ⓘ |
| firstAppeared | 1959 ⓘ |
| fullName |
Common Business-Oriented Language
ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
|
| hasStandard |
COBOL 2002
ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
COBOL 2014 ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
COBOL-68 ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
COBOL-74 ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
COBOL-85 ⓘ
linked to:
COBOL
|
| influenced |
ABAP
ⓘ
linked to:
SAP
PL/I ⓘ PeopleCode ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
COMTRAN
ⓘ
FLOW-MATIC ⓘ |
| notableFeature |
English-like syntax
ⓘ
decimal arithmetic support ⓘ extensive file handling ⓘ fixed-format source layout ⓘ self-documenting code style ⓘ |
| notableImplementation |
GnuCOBOL
ⓘ
IBM Enterprise COBOL ⓘ Micro Focus COBOL ⓘ |
| paradigm |
imperative
ⓘ
procedural ⓘ |
| primaryDomain | enterprise computing ⓘ |
| primaryPlatform |
IBM mainframes
ⓘ
enterprise servers ⓘ mainframe computers ⓘ |
| standardizedBy |
ANSI
ⓘ
ISO ⓘ |
| supports |
batch processing
ⓘ
online transaction processing ⓘ structured programming (from COBOL-85) ⓘ |
| typingDiscipline |
static typing
ⓘ
strong typing ⓘ |
| useCase |
banking systems
ⓘ
government administrative systems ⓘ insurance systems ⓘ payroll processing ⓘ transaction processing ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: COBOL Description of subject: COBOL is a long-established, English-like programming language primarily used for business, finance, and administrative systems on mainframes and enterprise platforms.
Referenced by (90)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
IBM RS/6000 systems
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
subject linked to:
FLOW-MATIC programming language
subject linked to:
FLOW-MATIC programming language
linked to: COBOL
subject linked to:
ICL 2903 minicomputer
linked to: COBOL
subject linked to:
Burroughs MCP (Master Control Program)
subject linked to:
SC 22
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL
linked to: COBOL