I find COBOL level-88 declarations a bit confusing, which isn’t made any easier by usage that is probably wrong. Here’s an example from code that I was trying to step through in the debugger (anonymized):

       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  data.
           10  function-type         PIC  X(01).
               88  option-a          VALUE '1'.
               88  option-b          VALUE '2'.
               88  option-c          VALUE '3'.
               88  option-d          VALUE '4'.

With the use like so:

           IF option-a AND option-b AND option-c
           NEXT SENTENCE ELSE GO TO meaningless-label-2.

It’s my understanding that this is essentially equivalent to:

           IF function-type = '1' AND function-type = '2' AND
              function-type = '3'
           NEXT SENTENCE ELSE GO TO meaningless-label-2.

Do I misunderstand the level-88 variables should be used, or is this just a plain old impossible-to-be-true if check? Putting this into a little sample program, confirms that we hit the ELSE:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID.                 TESTPROG.
       ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
       CONFIGURATION SECTION.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  data.
           10  function-type         PIC  X(01).
               88  option-a          VALUE '1'.
               88  option-b          VALUE '2'.
               88  option-c          VALUE '3'.
               88  option-d          VALUE '4'.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           move '1' to function-type

           perform meaningless-label-1 thru meaningless-label-6

           goback
           .

       meaningless-label-1.

      *    IF function-type = '1' AND function-type = '2' AND
      *       function-type = '3'
           IF option-a AND option-b AND option-c
           NEXT SENTENCE ELSE GO TO meaningless-label-2.

           display 'IF was true.'

           goto meaningless-label-6
           .

       meaningless-label-2.

           display 'IF was not true.'
           .

       meaningless-label-6.
           EXIT
           .

I get SYSOUT of:

IF was not true.

as I expected. If these were level-88 variables each “belonging” to a different variable, such as:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID.                 TESTPROG.
       ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
       CONFIGURATION SECTION.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  data.
           10  blah                 PIC  X(01).
               88  blah-option-a                 VALUE '1'.
               88  blah-option-b                 VALUE '2'.
           10  foo                  PIC  X(01).
               88  foo-option-a                  VALUE '1'.
               88  foo-option-b                  VALUE '2'.
               88  foo-option-c                  VALUE '3'.
           10  bar                  PIC  X(01).
               88  bar-option-c                  VALUE '3'.
               88  bar-option-d                  VALUE '4'.

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           move '1' to blah
           move '2' to foo
           move '3' to bar

           perform meaningless-label-1 thru meaningless-label-6

           goback
           .

       meaningless-label-1.

           IF blah-option-a AND foo-option-b AND bar-option-c
           NEXT SENTENCE ELSE GO TO meaningless-label-2.

           display 'IF was true.'

           goto meaningless-label-6
           .

       meaningless-label-2.

           display 'IF was not true.'
           .

       meaningless-label-6.
           EXIT
           .

This has the ‘IF was true’ SYSOUT. Perhaps the original coder meant to use OR instead of AND?