MODULE 2 · DATA AND PICTURE · 7/7

Challenge: format a payslip

30 min60 XPExercise

Payroll is one of the oldest COBOL workloads, and one of the most unforgiving: every figure on a payslip must be exactly right and laid out the same way every month. In this challenge you'll take one record from a payroll master file and format it as a payslip.

Everything from this module comes together:

a record layout with group and elementary items and level numbers, including a nested date group and a FILLER for bytes you don't use
implied decimals: the money fields in the record have no decimal point, just digits
print-line groups built from FILLER text and named fields
MOVE rules: field-by-field moves to rearrange the date
edited pictures for the money columns, including check protection
VALUE ALL for the ruled lines

The input record

The whole record arrives as one fixed-width line of 62 characters, exactly as it would sit in a mainframe dataset. Read it with a single ACCEPT IN-PAY-REC, and the layout you declare does the splitting:

E00123MURPHY, SEAN        20260930032500000487500276250S1L0D04
|     |                   |       |      |      |      |   |
ID    NAME                DATE    GROSS  TAX    NET    ??? DEPT

0325000 in a PIC 9(5)V99 field is 3,250.00. The four characters marked ??? hold a tax code this program doesn't need: skip them with FILLER.

Planning the print lines

Before writing any code, count the bytes. A layout table on paper (or in a comment) saves a lot of time:

      *  POS  LEN  CONTENT
      *    1   12  "PAYSLIP FOR "
      *   13    6  EMPLOYEE ID
      *   19    1  SPACE
      *   20   20  NAME

Every heading, separator and gap is a FILLER with a VALUE whose length matches its PIC.

On the job

Payroll changes go through parallel runs: the new program and the old one process the same month's data and the outputs are compared line by line. A single misplaced space fails the comparison, which is why this course checks your output exactly.

Your task

Format a payslip from one payroll master record.

Input (one 62-character line, read with ACCEPT IN-PAY-REC):

Pos	Len	Field	Content
1	6	`IN-EMP-ID`	employee ID, text
7	20	`IN-EMP-NAME`	name, text
27	8	`IN-PAY-DATE`	pay date `YYYYMMDD` (a group: year, month, day)
35	7	`IN-GROSS`	gross pay, 5 digits + 2 implied decimals
42	7	`IN-TAX`	tax, 5 digits + 2 implied decimals
49	7	`IN-NET`	net pay, 5 digits + 2 implied decimals
56	4	`FILLER`	tax code, not used
60	3	`IN-DEPT`	department code

Output for the record E00123MURPHY, SEAN 20260930032500000487500276250S1L0D04:

============================================================
PAYSLIP FOR E00123 MURPHY, SEAN         DEPT D04  PAID 30/09/2026
GROSS  3,250.00  TAX    487.50  NET $*2,762.50
============================================================

The ruled lines are 60 = characters, from one field with VALUE ALL.
Line 2: PAYSLIP FOR, the ID, a space, the name (all 20 characters), DEPT, the department, PAID and the date as DD/MM/YYYY.
Line 3: GROSS, gross pay, TAX, tax, NET, net pay. Gross and tax use zero suppression with a thousands comma and always show 0.00 at least (9 characters each). Net pay is 10 characters: a fixed $ then * check protection with a thousands comma.
Build lines 2 and 3 as groups with FILLER items, and DISPLAY each group.

← Edited pictures ADD and SUBTRACT →

Run your program to see its output here. The first visible test's input and datasets are used.

Submit to grade your program against every test.