isCOBOL Evolve : Language Reference : ELK Directives : USE GROUP Directive
USE GROUP Directive
The USE GROUP directive assigns a group of items to a single service field. The default data type for the resultant field is alphanumeric.
>>ELK USE GROUP
or
$ELK USE GROUP
or
*(( ELK USE GROUP ))
or
*>(( ELK USE GROUP ))
Example
Have a single field named "time" instead of three different fields named "hh", "mm", "ss".
       Linkage Section.
       01 params.
          03 p1 pic x(10).
      >>ELK USE GROUP
          03 time.
             05 hh pic 99.
             05 mm pic 99.
             05 ss pic 99.