HP COBOL II Reference Manual

EXIT Statement 

The EXIT statement provides a common end point for a series of
procedures.

The EXIT statement has the following format:

     paragraph-name 
             EXIT 
     paragraph/section-name 

Paragraph-name and paragraph/section name are not a part of the EXIT
statement.  They are shown to clarify the fact that:

 *  EXIT must appear in a sentence by itself

 *  EXIT must be the only sentence in a paragraph

An EXIT statement serves only to enable you to terminate a procedure and
has no other effect on the compilation or execution of the program.

Example 

     PROCEDURE DIVISION.
             .
             .
             .
         PERFORM FIX-IT THRU OUT.
             .
             .
             .
         PERFORM EXCESS THRU OUT.
             .
             .
             .
     FIX-IT.
             IF CHARS IS ALPHABETIC THEN GO TO OUT.
             .
             .
             .
     EXCESS.
             IF OVER-AMT IS EQUAL TO 0 THEN GO TO OUT.
             .
             .
             .
     OUT.
             EXIT.
             .
     NEXT-PAR.
             .
             .

In the above illustration, both of the IF statements are the first lines
of procedures executed by PERFORM statements.  If the condition in either
of the IF statements returns a "true" value, the statement branches to
the OUT paragraph, the EXIT statement is executed, and control passes to
the statement following the PERFORM statement that called the procedure.