Comments
A comment is a character-string that can contain any combination of characters from the character set of the computer.
It has no effect on the execution of the program. There are three forms of comments:
- Comment entry (IDENTIFICATION DIVISION)
- This form is described under Optional paragraphs.
- Comment line (any division)
- This form is described under Comment lines.
- Inline comments (any division)
- An inline comment is identified by a floating comment indicator (*>) preceded by one or more character-strings in the program-text area, and can be written on any line of a compilation group. All characters that follow the floating comment indicator up to the end of area B are comment text.
Character-strings that form comments can contain DBCS characters or a combination of DBCS and single-byte EBCDIC characters.
Multiple comment lines that contain DBCS strings are allowed. The embedding of DBCS characters in a comment line must be done on a line-by-line basis. Words containing those characters cannot be continued to a following line. No syntax checking for valid strings is provided in comment lines.