One might expect that the output is "1 2 3 END END END", and in fact that is what some COBOL compilers will produce. But some compilers, like IBM COBOL, will produce code that prints "1 2 3 END END END END ..." and so on, printing "END" over and over in an endless loop. Since there is limited space to store backup continuation addresses, the backups get overwritten in the course of recursive invocations, and all that can be restored is the jump back to .