A separator is a character or a string of two or more contiguous characters that delimits character-strings. The separators are shown in the following table.
| Separator | Meaning |
|---|---|
| b1 | Space |
| ,b1 | Comma |
| .b1 | Period |
| ;b1 | Semicolon |
| ( | Left parenthesis |
| ) | Right parenthesis |
| : | Colon |
| "b1 | Quotation mark |
| 'b1 | Apostrophe |
| X" | Opening delimiter for a hexadecimal format alphanumeric literal |
| X' | Opening delimiter for a hexadecimal format alphanumeric literal |
| Z" | Opening delimiter for a null-terminated alphanumeric literal |
| Z' | Opening delimiter for a null-terminated alphanumeric literal |
| N" | Opening delimiter for a national literal2 |
| N' | Opening delimiter for a national literal2 |
| NX" | Opening delimiter for a hexadecimal format national literal |
| NX' | Opening delimiter for a hexadecimal format national literal |
| G" | Opening delimiter for a DBCS literal |
| G' | Opening delimiter for a DBCS literal |
| == | Pseudo-text delimiter |
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