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


User-defined words with DBCS characters

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.

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