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COBOL does support POINTERs. They can be associated with Data in either FILE, LINKAGE or a STORAGE section. Also, you can have FUNCTION POINTER similar to C++ Function pointers and Procedure Pointer
The UPPER and LOWER functions require the CODEPAGE to be set correctly. Since you did not specify your compiler and environment, I can not tell you how to do that. Consult you compiler programmers guide

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