COBOL Manual for TNS/E Programs (H06.03+)

Language Elements
HP COBOL Manual for TNS/E Programs—520347-003
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Comments
Period
A period (.) that immediately precedes one or more spaces acts as a period separator.
Period separators are required in certain places by the syntactic definition of COBOL.
They cannot appear anywhere else.
Each sentence within the Identification and Procedure divisions and each entry within
the Environment and Data divisions must end with a period separator.
Quotation Marks
Quotation marks in balanced pairs enclose nonnumeric literals. You must precede the
beginning quotation mark (") with a space and follow the ending quotation mark with a
separator space, comma, semicolon, period, or right parenthesis. Except where a
literal continues across several lines, each delimiting quotation mark acts as a
separator.
Within a simple nonnumeric literal, two consecutive quotation marks represent one
quotation mark.
Parentheses
The punctuation characters left parenthesis [(] and right parenthesis [)] serve
individually as separators. Parenthesis separators can appear only in balanced pairs
delimiting subscripts, reference modifiers, arithmetic expressions, or conditions. The
opening member of each balanced pair must be a left parenthesis separator; the
closing member must be a right parenthesis separator.
Equal Sign
The pseudo-text delimiter (==) is a separator. It can only appear in balanced pairs
delimiting pseudo-text. An opening pseudo-text separator must be immediately
preceded by a space. A closing pseudo-text separator must be immediately followed
by a space, comma, semicolon, or period separator.
Comments
All characters appearing within a comment-entry or comment line are a part of that
entity and are never interpreted as separators in that context.
Nonnumeric and National Literals
Characters appearing within a character-string that represents a nonnumeric or
national literal are components of its value and are never interpreted as separators.