The following is an example of how a COBOL74 program could detect errors by using the result returned by the CRCR and STOQ functions.

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
  77  RESULT-STATUS         REAL.
  77  CRCR-PGM-NAME-LEN     PIC S9(11) BINARY.
  77  CRCR-FLAGS            REAL.
  01  CRCR-PGM-NAME         PIC X(256) WITH LOWER-BOUNDS.
  01  CRCR-DATA             PIC X(20000).
  77 ERRBOOL               REAL.
  77  ERRTYPE               REAL.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
BEGIN-PARA.
     CHANGE ATTRIBUTE LIBACCESS OF  “EVASUPPORT”
           TO BYFUNCTION.
     CALL “CRCR_RECV OF EVASUPPORT”
           USING CRCR-PGM-NAME, CRCR-PGM-NAME-LEN,
                 CRCR-DATA, CRCR-FLAGS
           GIVING RESULT-STATUS.
     MOVE RESULT-STATUS TO ERRBOOL [00:00:01].
     MOVE RESULT-STATUS TO ERRTYPE [10:00:01].
     IF ERRBOOL = 1
           IF ERRTYPE = 1
                GO TO CRCR-ERROR
                     ELSE
                GO TO STOQ-ERROR.

In the preceding example, CRCR-ERROR and STOQ-ERROR are names of error-handling sections located elsewhere in the program.

Because fatal errors cause the program to be terminated, the program does not need to check whether the error returned is fatal or nonfatal.