Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

In one of the programs I've seen that they are using PROCEDURE-POINTER phrase. Have read about it here: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgece ... ddepro.htm but I could not really understand when do we really made a decision to make use of PROCEDURE-POINTER? Could someone please guide me on this.

A PROCEDURE-POINTER is needed if AND ONLY IF you need the starting address of a program. This is needed for certain LE functions. The PROCEDURE-POINTER is rarely used.

Thanks Robert. Is this pointer is like the pointers we use C?

Most likely, someone read about the PROCEDURE-POINTER and decided to implement it in your application without really having a need for it. Many new features of COBOL get used just so people can say they've used the feature, not because the need exists for the feature in that application. A PROCEDURE-POINTER would come in handy in only a very few circumstances -- such as when you have nested COBOL programs and want to know the original program name, for example.