User-defined words with DBCS characters
There are the rules for forming user-defined words with DBCS characters.
The rules are:
- 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, hyphen, and underscore (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, the hyphen (-), and the underscore (_) are allowed. The hyphen cannot appear as the first or last character. The underscore cannot appear as the first 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.