This variable is used when you are writing a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) program in COBOL. It allows you to control the behavior of the ACCEPT statement when CGI variables do not exist in the CGI input data.
By default, ACCEPT sets the value of numeric data items to zero and non-numeric data items to spaces if a CGI variable does not exist. Set the CGI_CLEAR_MISSING_VALUES configuration variable to 0 (off, false, no) if you do not want ACCEPT to change the value of the data item if the corresponding CGI variable is missing from the CGI input data.