title: How does COBOL store and retrieve data?
body: <p>I'm starting to learn about COBOL. I have some experience writing programs that deal with SQL databases and I guess I'm confused how COBOL stores and retrieves data that is stored in a mainframe for example. I know that it's not like relational databases but every example program I've seen takes data straight from the command line and I know that's not how real world COBOL programs process the data. Can someone explain or show me a good resource that can explain it? </p>