What is the difference between a subscript and an index in a table definition?
A subscript is a working storage data definition item, typically a PIC (999) where a value must be moved to the subscript and then increment or decrement it by ADD TO and SUBTRACT FROM statements. An index is a register item that exists outside the program’s working storage. You SET an index to a value and SET it UP BY value and DOWN BY value. Subscript refers to the array occurrence while index is the displacement (in no of bytes) from the beginning of the array. An index can only be modified using PERFORM, SEARCH & SET. Need to have index for a table in order to use SEARCH, SEARCH ALL Cobol statements.