Answer Posted / vish

Unfortunately none of the answers are complete. A missing
period doesn't always give compilation errors rather it
depends upon at which place the period is missing. Ending a
sentence with a period in COBOL is rather a good practice
than a mandate for most of the code otherwise the code may
be logically gonig in wrong way. But true, COBOL mandates
that a period must be given at some places. for example,
see the below syntax:

000000-PARA.
IF ABC
DISPLAY 'ABC'
END-IF
<COBOL SYNTAXES>
<COBOL SYNTAXES>
DISPLAY 'AT THE END OF PARA'
000000-EXIT.
EXIT.

here it will give the compilation error as the compiler
expects the last executable sentence before the 000000-EXIT
to be ended with a period (.). However, if we end the last
DISPLAY sentence with a period then the compilation will go
fine without any error or warning.

consider some other examples...
case#1
000000-PARA.
IF ABC = 0
DISPLAY 'ABC'
ELSE
NEXT SENTENCE
END-IF
DISPLAY 'BCD'
DISPLAY 'CDE'
DISPLAY 'AT THE END OF PARA'.
DISPLAY 'BYE'.
000000-EXIT.
EXIT.

case#2
000000-PARA.
IF ABC = 0
DISPLAY 'ABC'
ELSE
NEXT SENTENCE
END-IF.
DISPLAY 'BCD'.
DISPLAY 'CDE'.
DISPLAY 'AT THE END OF PARA'.
DISPLAY 'BYE'.
000000-EXIT.
EXIT.

Suppose ABC has a value 1 then we will get the output as
follws:
for case#1
BYE

for case#2
BCD
CDE
AT THE END OF PARA
BYE

These are just some examples...bottomline is - if we don't
give the scope terminator with periods then we may get
compilation errors or we may get logical errors, depending
upon where you missed the period. Enjoy!

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