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

an exception exists if the apparent last character of such a character-string is a period or comma
immediately followed by a space. In this case, the period or comma is always interpreted as part
of the separator following the character-string, and not as the last character of the numeric literal
or PICTURE character-string.
Character-Strings
A character-string consists of one or more characters that form:
• COBOL Words
• Literals
• PICTURE Character-Strings
• Comments
Most character-strings are limited to certain characters, but nonnumeric literals (except for
hexadecimal literals beginning with X ) and comments can contain any characters. Character-strings
and separators form the text of COBOL source programs.
COBOL Words
char-1, char-n
If the COBOL word is a level-number or segment-number, then char-1 is a digit.
If the COBOL word is a section-name or paragraph-name, then these rules apply:
• char-1 is a letter (uppercase or lowercase) or a digit.
• char-n is a letter (uppercase or lowercase), a digit, or a hyphen (-).
• The last character cannot be a hyphen.
• The maximum length of the word is 30 characters.
If the COBOL word is not a level-number, segment-number, section-name, or paragraph-name,
these rules apply:
• char-1 is a letter (uppercase or lowercase) or a digit.
• If char-1 is the only character in the word, then it must be a letter.
• char-n is a letter (uppercase or lowercase), a digit, or a hyphen (-).
• At least one character must be either a letter or a hyphen.
• The last character cannot be a hyphen.
• The maximum length of the word is 30 characters.
Character-Strings 63