Nonnumeric Literals

Purpose

A nonnumeric literal is a string of any allowable EBCDIC or DBCS characters. The nonnumeric literal must be enclosed in single quotation marks.

Nonnumeric literals can be used whenever the process command syntax specifies that the literal be in quotes.

Usage

A single quotation mark in the string is coded as two single quotation marks (' ').

Example 1: Digits and characters used as nonnumeric literals

The digits 0307 and the characters END OF SET CONDITION in the following example are nonnumeric literals:

IF ERROR-STATUS EQ '0307'
  THEN
    DISPLAY TEXT 'END OF SET CONDITION'.

Example 2: Single quotation marks within a string

The apostrophe contained in the following nonnumeric literal is coded with two single quotation marks:

MOVE 'JOHN KERR''S BROTHER' TO EMP-RELATIONSHIP.