Continuation lines

Any sentence, entry, clause, or phrase that requires more than one line can be continued in Area B of the next line that is neither a comment line nor a blank line.

The line being continued is a continued line; the succeeding lines are continuation lines. Area A of a continuation line must be blank.

If there is no hyphen (-) in the indicator area (column 7) of a line, the last character of the preceding line is assumed to be followed by a space.

The following items cannot be continued:

DBCS user-defined words
DBCS literals
Alphanumeric literals containing DBCS characters
National literals containing DBCS characters

However, alphanumeric literals and national literals in hexadecimal notation can be continued regardless of the kind of characters expressed in hexadecimal notation.

All characters that make up an opening literal delimiter must be on the same line. For example, Z", G", N", NX", or X".

Both characters that make up the pseudo-text delimiter separator, ==, the floating comment indicator, *>, or the compiler directive indicator, >>, must be on the same line.

If there is a hyphen in the indicator area of a line, the first nonblank character of the continuation line immediately follows the last nonblank character of the continued line without an intervening space.

Continuation of alphanumeric and national literals

Alphanumeric and national literals can be continued only when there are no DBCS characters in the content of the literal.

The following rules apply to alphanumeric and national literals that do not contain DBCS characters:

If the continued line contains an alphanumeric or national literal without a closing quotation mark, all spaces at the end of the continued line (through column 72) are considered to be part of the literal. The continuation line must contain a hyphen in the indicator area, and the first nonblank character must be a quotation mark. The continuation of the literal begins with the character immediately following the quotation mark.
If an alphanumeric or national literal that is to be continued on the next line has as its last character a quotation mark in column 72, the continuation line must start with two consecutive quotation marks. This will result in a quotation mark as part of the value of the literal.
If the last character on the continued line of an alphanumeric or national literal is a quotation mark in Area B, the continuation line can start with a quotation mark. This will result in two consecutive literals instead of one continued literal.

The rules are the same when an apostrophe is used instead of a quotation mark in delimiters.

If you want to continue a literal such that the continued lines and the continuation lines are part of one literal:

Code a hyphen in the indicator area of each continuation line.
Code the literal value using all columns of each continued line, up to and including column 72. (Do not terminate the continued lines with a quotation mark followed by a space.)
Code a quotation mark before the first character of the literal on each continuation line.
Terminate the last continuation line with a quotation mark followed by a space.

In the following examples, the number and size of literals created are indicated below the example:


|...+.*..1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7..
000001               "AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBCCCCCCCCCCDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE
      -              "GGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIJJJJJJJJJJKKKKKKKKKK
      -    "LLLLLLLLLLMMMMMMMMMM"

Literal 000001 is interpreted as one alphanumeric literal that is 120 bytes long. Each character between the starting quotation mark and up to and including column 72 of continued lines is counted as part of the literal.


|...+.*..1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7..
000003              N"AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBCCCCCCCCCCDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE
      -              "GGGGGGGGGG"

Literal 000003 is interpreted as one national literal that is 60 national character positions in length (120 bytes). Each character between the starting quotation mark and the ending quotation mark on the continued line is counted as part of the literal. Although single-byte characters are entered, the value of the literals is stored as national characters.


|...+.*..1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7..
000005     "AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBCCCCCCCCCCDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE
      -    "GGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIJJJJJJJJJJKKKKKKKKKK
      -    "LLLLLLLLLLMMMMMMMMMM"

Literal 000005 is interpreted as one literal that is 140 bytes long. The blanks at the end of each continued line are counted as part of the literal because the continued lines do not end with a quotation mark.


|...+.*..1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7..
000010     "AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBCCCCCCCCCCDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEE"
      -    "GGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIJJJJJJJJJJKKKKKKKKKK"
      -    "LLLLLLLLLLMMMMMMMMMM"

Literal 000010 is interpreted as three separate literals that have lengths of 50, 50, and 20, respectively. The quotation mark with the following space terminates the continued line. Only the characters within the quotation marks are counted as part of the literals. Literal 000010 is not valid as a VALUE clause literal for non-level-88 data items.

To code a continued literal where the length of each continued part of the literal is less than the length of Area B, adjust the starting column such that the last character of the continued part is in column 72.