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
IBM Extension G N End of IBM Extension
End of IBM Extension
The following symbols may appear only once in one PICTURE character-string:
S V . CR DB
IBM Extension
IBM Extension E 1 End of IBM Extension
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.