Character-String Representation

The following symbols may appear more than once in one PICTURE character-string:
A  B  P  X  Z  9  0  /  ,  +  -  *  $
IBM Extension
 G      N
End of IBM Extension
The following symbols may appear only once in one PICTURE character-string:
S V . CR DB
IBM Extension
 E  1
End of IBM Extension
If the LOCALE phrase is specified, only the symbol 9 can appear more than once. If the LOCALE phrase is specified, the following symbols may appear only once in one PICTURE character string:
. + cs

An integer enclosed in parentheses immediately following any of the symbols that may occur more than once in a PICTURE character string specifies the number of consecutive occurrences of that symbol. The integer may be specified by a constant name. The number of consecutive occurrences cannot exceed 16 711 568.

For example, the following two PICTURE clause specifications are equivalent:
PICTURE IS $99999.99CR
 
PICTURE IS $9(5).9(2)CR

Each time any of the above symbols appears in the character-string, it represents an occurrence of that character or set of allowable characters in the data item.