COBOL Manual for TNS/E Programs (H06.08+, J06.03+)

MULTIPLY34
• If two diagram pieces are separated by a separator character, separating the syntactic items
that they represent by spaces is optional. For example:
means that you type:
MULTIPLY 3,4
or
MULTIPLY 3, 4
• If a diagram piece is immediately followed by a period, putting spaces between the syntactic
item and the period is optional. For example:
means that you can type:
END PROGRAM SORT.
or
END PROGRAM SORT .
• Explicit spacing rules given for individual railroad diagrams override the aforementioned
rules.
NOTE: Except in literals and PICTURE clauses, HP COBOL treats the comma (,) and semicolon
(;) as equivalents.
Range Convention
Ranges include their endpoints unless otherwise noted. For example, “x is in the range from 0
through 32,767” means that x is greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 32,767.
Example Conventions
In examples, a modified ellipsis (...) indicates an omission. The code in Example 1 can be
abbreviated as shown in Example 2.
Notation Conventions 33