In ALGOL, an event declaration is similar to a simple variable declaration. The following statement declares two events:

EVENT EDATA, EACCESS;

Events can be grouped in ALGOL as a one-dimensional event array. The following example declares an event array:

EVENT ARRAY EVNT[1:12];

The elements of this array can be used wherever an event is allowed. For example, EVNT[3] accesses the third event in the previous array declaration.

Events can be declared in COBOL as elementary or group items. The following example declares an event as an elementary item:

77 E1 USAGE IS EVENT.

The following example declares a group item that contains two events and a two-dimensional event array:

01 EGROUP      USAGE IS EVENT.
   03 E-1.
   03 E-2.
   03 E-3 OCCURS 5.
      05 E-4 OCCURS 10.