Coding Considerations › Comment Text, Source Statements, and Edit Instructions › Comment Text

Comment Text

Comment text is represented in the DDDL statements as comment-text. Guidelines for entering comment text are as follows:

• Enter comment text in columns 1 through 80. Include the quote character in the input column count when determining the number of characters per line.
• Comments can consist of any number of lines.
• Each line must begin with the site-standard quote character.
• Each line must end with the site-standard quote character, unless it is being continued on the next line.
• To continue comment text beyond one line, code a hyphen character on all subsequent lines (the hyphen is included in the number of characters per line). The hyphen can appear anywhere within the specified input column range, provided it is the first character on the continued line.

  Note: The DDDL compiler does not process lines of commenttext that begin with an asterisk (*).

• To concatenate lines of comment text into one line containing a maximum of 80 characters, code a plus sign (+) as the first character on the line to be concatenated.

  Note: You must include a closing quotation mark on a line that is to be concatenated.

Example of Continuation and Concatenation

The following example illustrates lines of comment text that are to be continued (as represented by the hyphen) and concatenated (as represented by the plus sign). Note that spaces coded before the closing quotation mark are included in concatenated lines:

'lengthy input can be concatenated'
-'onto one line '
+'containing up to 80 characters.'
-'code a + as the first character on a line'
-'that is to be concatenated.'
-'the plus sign and quotation mark'
-'are not included in the '
+'80-character count.'

The comment text as it would appear on a batch report:

LENGTHY INPUT CAN BE CONCATENATED
ONTO ONE LINE CONTAINING UP TO 80 CHARACTERS.
CODE A + AS THE FIRST CHARACTER ON A LINE
THAT IS TO BE CONCATENATED.
THE PLUS SIGN AND QUOTATION MARK
ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE 80-CHARACTER COUNT.