Rational Developer for System z
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS, Version 4.1, Language Reference


Character-string representation

Symbols that can appear more than once
The following symbols can appear more than once in one PICTURE character-string:
A  B  G  N  P  X  Z  9  0  /  ,  +    *  cs

At least one of the symbols A, G, N, X, Z, 9, or *, or at least two of the symbols +, , or cs must be present in a PICTURE string.

An unsigned nonzero integer enclosed in parentheses immediately following any of these symbols specifies the number of consecutive occurrences of that symbol.

Example: The following two PICTURE clause specifications are equivalent:

PICTURE IS $99999.99CR
PICTURE IS $9(5).9(2)CR
Symbols that can appear only once
The following symbols can appear only once in one PICTURE character-string:
E  S  V  .  CR  DB

Except for the PICTURE symbol V, each occurrence of any of the above symbols in a given PICTURE character-string represents an occurrence of that character or set of allowable characters in the data item.


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