The following are the rules for forming user-defined words from DBCS characters:
- Use of shift-out shift-in characters:
- DBCS user-defined words begin with a shift-out character and end with a shift-in character.
- Value range:
- DBCS user-defined words can contain characters whose values range from hex 41 to hex FE for both bytes.
- Contained characters:
- DBCS user-defined words can contain only DBCS characters. DBCS user-defined words can contain characters that correspond to single-byte EBCDIC characters and those that do not correspond to single-byte EBCDIC characters. DBCS characters that correspond to single-byte EBCDIC characters follow the normal rules for COBOL user-defined words; that is, the characters A - Z, a - z, 0 - 9, and the hyphen (-) are allowed. The hyphen cannot appear as the first or last character. Any of the DBCS characters that have no corresponding single-byte EBCDIC character can be used in DBCS user-defined words.
- Continuation rules:
- DBCS words cannot be continued across lines.
- Maximum length:
- 14 DBCS characters.
- User-defined words:
- The following types of user-defined words are supported in ILE COBOL. The second column indicates whether DBCS characters are allowed in words of a given type.
| Type of user-defined word |
DBCS characters allowed |
| Alphabet-name |
Yes |
| Class-name (of data) |
Yes |
| Condition-name |
Yes |
| Data-name |
Yes |
| File-name |
Yes |
| Index-name |
Yes |
| Library-name |
No |
| Mnemonic-name |
Yes |
| Paragraph-name |
Yes |
| Program-name |
No |
| Record-name |
Yes |
| Section-name |
Yes |
| Text-name |
No |
Note: In order to use the user-defined COBOL Words with DBCS character, PROCESS option GRAPHIC must be in effect, otherwise the DBCS words will be treated as invalid characters.