Array of arrays

Java doesn’t provide multidimensional arrays. The concept of a multidimensional array is implicitly translated to an array of arrays.

On the contrary COBOL has multidimensional arrays and does not support implicit arrays of arrays instead.

For the above reason, a Java code like this

public class arrays {     public static void main (String[] args) {         String[][] strarr = new String[3][2];         String[] subarr = new String[2];         subarr[0] = "OK";         subarr[1] = "OK";         strarr[0] = subarr;         System.out.println (strarr[0][0]);         System.out.println (strarr[0][1]);     } }

cannot be translated to COBOL as follows:

program-id. arrays.        configuration section.        repository.            class StringArr1 as "java.lang.String[]"            class StringArr2 as "java.lang.String[][]"            class JSystem   as "java.lang.System"            .        working-storage section.        77 subarr object reference StringArr1.        77 strarr object reference StringArr2.          procedure division.        main.            set strarr to StringArr2:>new(3, 2).            set subarr to StringArr1:>new(2).            set subarr(0) to "OK".            set subarr(1) to "OK".            set strarr(0) to subarr.            JSystem:>out:>println(strarr(0, 0)).            JSystem:>out:>println(strarr(0, 1)).            goback.

The correct translation is the following:

program-id. arrays.        configuration section.        repository.            class StringArr1 as "java.lang.String[]"            class StringArr2 as "java.lang.String[][]"            class JSystem   as "java.lang.System"            .        working-storage section.        77 subarr object reference StringArr1.        77 strarr object reference StringArr2.        77 i      pic 9(3).          procedure division.        main.            set strarr to StringArr2:>new(3, 2).            set subarr to StringArr1:>new(2).            set subarr(0) to "OK".            set subarr(1) to "OK".            perform varying i from 0 by 1 until i = subarr:>length()               set strarr(0, i) to subarr(i)            end-perform.            JSystem:>out:>println(strarr(0, 0)).            JSystem:>out:>println(strarr(0, 1)).            goback.