A free-form statement is coded in columns 8-80. Columns 6-7 must be blank.
In most cases, a free-form statement begins with an operation code, such as CTL-OPT, DCL-F, DCL-DS, READE, or DCL-PROC.
A free-form statement ends with a semicolon.
In general, all text
following // on a free-form
line is considered to be a comment.
However, if // appears within a character literal, it is
considered to be part of the literal.
In the following example,
1 , 2 ,
and 4 are comments, but
3 is not a comment because
// appears within a literal. 
When // follows non-comment code on the same line, it is
often referred to as an end-of-line comment.
The comments
at 2 and 4
are end-of-line comments.
// comment 1
DCL-S string // comment 2
CHAR(10);
string = 'abc // not-comment 3 +
'def'; // comment 4

For a list of operation codes supported in free-form calculations, see Operation Codes.
