iTS 1.0+)

SCREEN COBOL Source Program

Compaq NonStop™ Pathway/iTS SCREEN COBOL Reference Manual—426750-001

2-6

Separators

Separators are strings of one or more punctuation characters; they can have leading or

trailing blanks. Table 2-4 lists and defines the separators.

Some character strings include punctuation characters, in which case those characters do

not act as separators. Any character in the ASCII character set can appear in a

nonnumeric literal, provided the character does not have special meaning to a hardware

device.

SCREEN COBOL Words

A SCREEN COBOL word is a character string that forms a reserved word, user-defined

word, or system name. A word can have a maximum of 30 characters.

Reserved Words

A reserved word has special meaning for the compiler. A reserved word cannot be used

as a data item name or a system name. Reserved words are any of the following:

•

Keywords

•

Special registers

•

Figurative constants

Reserved words must be spelled correctly and can be used only as specified in syntax.

Table 2-4. Separators

, ; . A comma, semicolon, or period immediately followed by a space is a separator. A

period can appear as a separator only when it terminates headers, entries, and

sentences as defined by the syntax. A comma or semicolon that is a separator is

treated as a space.

" " Quotation marks are used to enclose nonnumeric literals. The characters appear in

balanced pairs except when the literal is continued across a line. The first quotation

mark must be preceded by a space, and the second one must be followed by a

separator other than another quotation mark.

( ) Right and left parentheses enclose certain parts of character strings. Although they

must appear in balanced pairs, each is considered a separator.

space A space separates language elements.