File- Section &Working-Storage Section:

a) FILE SECTION:

The FILE SECTION includes the explanation of all data items that must be read from or written onto some external file.

b) WORKING-STORAGE SECTION:

The data items that are developed internally as intermediate result as well as the constants are explained in this section of the DATA DIVISION.

  The format of the DATA DIVISION is as shown below:

    DATA DIVISION.

    [FILE SECTION.

    File section entries.

    ......  

    ......]

    [WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

     WORKING-STORAGE ENTRIES.

     ......

     ......]

All the section names as well as the division name should be coded as the margin A entries,

Each section of the DATA DIVISION is optional that means that a section may be omitted if there is no data which may be explained in a specific section. It is important to note that the sections to be included should appear in the order as shown above.