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Coding Entity-Occurrence Names

An entity-occurrence name is the name you provide to a schema or subschema entity, such as the schema itself, a schema area, and a schema record.

Valid Characters

The following are valid characters to include in entity-occurrence names:

The first character of an identifier must be a letter, @, $, or #. A hyphen cannot be the last character and cannot follow another hyphen.

Note: Element name can also begin with a digit (0 through 9).

Program Language Restrictions

Because the DDL compilers cannot anticipate which programming languages will use which records and elements, the user is responsible for ensuring that record and element names follow the character set and word length rules and do not duplicate any of the reserved words of the specific compiler or assembler.

Maximum Length

The maximum length of an entity-occurrence name depends on the entity. Syntax rules for each entity indicate length restrictions.

Avoid Using Keywords

Keywords recognized by a DML processor may inhibit the processor's operation when used as entity-occurrence names. Keywords will pass successfully through the processor under some conditions, but not under others. Consequently, avoid using keywords as entity-occurrence names.