Separators

A separator can be a single punctuation character or a string of punctuation characters.

The following is a list of the COBOL separator characters and their meaning.

␢ (space)
Space
,
Comma
.
Period
;
Semicolon
(
Left parenthesis
)
Right parenthesis
"
Quotation mark
==
Pseudo-text delimiter
:
Colon
IBM Extension
'
Apostrophe
B"
Opening delimiter for Boolean literal
X"
Opening delimiter for hexadecimal nonnumeric literal
G"
Opening delimiter for DBCS literal
N"
Start of change Opening delimiter for
  • national literal if the NATIONALPICNLIT PROCESS option is in effect
  • DBCS literal otherwise
End of change
NX"
Opening delimiter for national hexadecimal literal
Z"
Opening delimiter for null-terminated nonnumeric literal
End of IBM Extension