The following are the rules for forming user-defined words with DBCS
characters:
- Contained characters
- DBCS user-defined words can contain only double-byte characters, and
must contain at least one DBCS character that is not in the set A through Z, a through z,
0 through 9, and hyphen (DBCS representation of these characters has X'42' in the first
byte).
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.
- Uppercase and lowercase letters
- In COBOL words, each lowercase single-byte encoded character "a" through "z"
is considered to be equivalent to its corresponding single-byte encoded uppercase
character. DBCS-encoded uppercase and lowercase letters are not
equivalent.
- Value range
- DBCS user-defined words can contain characters whose values range from
X'41' to X'FE' for both bytes.
- Maximum length
- 14 characters
- Continuation
- Words formed with DBCS characters cannot be continued across lines.
- Use of shift-out and shift-in characters
- DBCS user-defined words begin with a shift-out character and end with a
shift-in character.