Characters

In the COBOL language, individual characters are joined to form character-strings and separators. Character-strings and separators, then, are used to form the words, literals, phrases, clauses, statements, and sentences that form the language.

For certain language elements, the basic character set is extended with the EBCDIC Double-Byte Character Set (DBCS).

DBCS characters can be used in forming user-defined words.

The content of alphanumeric literals, comment lines, and comment entries can include any of the characters in the computer's compile-time character set, and can include both single-byte and DBCS characters.

Runtime data can include any characters from the runtime character set of the computer. The runtime character set of the computer can include alphanumeric characters, DBCS characters, and national characters. National characters are represented in UTF-16, a 16-bit encoding form of Unicode.

When the NSYMBOL (NATIONAL) compiler option is in effect, literals identified by the opening delimiter N" or N' are national literals and can contain any single-byte or double-byte characters, or both, that are valid for the compile-time code page in effect (either the default code page or the code page specified for the CODEPAGE compiler option). Characters contained in national literals are represented as national characters at run time.

For details, see User-defined words with DBCS characters, DBCS literals, and National literals.

Table 1. Basic COBOL character set. This table lists basic COBOL character set.

Character	Meaning	Use	Example
	Space	Punctuation character	01 WS-A PIC X(10).
+	Plus sign	Arithmetic operator	COMPUTE WS-A = WS-B + WS-C.
		Editing character	01 WS-A PIC +9(3).
-	Minus sign or hyphen	Arithmetic operator	COMPUTE WS-A = WS-B - WS-C.
		Editing character	01 WS-A PIC -9(3).
		Continuation character	01 WS-VAR PIC X(27) VALUE - 'THIS MULTI-LINE TEXT'.
		COBOL word element	01 WS-A PIC 9(3).
*	Asterisk	Arithmetic operator	COMPUTE WS-A = WS-B * WS-C.
		Editing character	01 WS-A PIC **9.
		Comment character	* THIS IS COMMENT LINE.
/	Forward slash or solidus	Arithmetic operator	COMPUTE WS-A = WS-B / WS-C.
		Editing character	01 WS-DATE PIC 99/99/99.
		Continuation character	/01 WS-VAR PIC X(27) VALUE / 'THIS MULTI-LINE TEXT'.
=	Equal sign	Assignment character	COMPUTE WS-A = WS-B / WS-C.
		Relation character	IF WS-A = 10
$	Currency sign1	Editing character	01 WS-DATE PIC $$99.
,	Comma	Editing character	01 WS-DATE PIC 99,999.
		Punctuation character	MOVE 10 TO WS-A, WS-B.
;	Semicolon	Punctuation character	MOVE 10 TO WS-A; WS-B.
.	Decimal point or period	Editing character	01 WS-DATE PIC 99.999.
		Punctuation character	MOVE 10 TO WS-A, WS-B.
"	Quotation mark2	Punctuation character	01 WS-VAR PIC X(5) VALUE "HELLO".
'	Apostrophe	Punctuation character	01 WS-VAR PIC X(5) VALUE 'HELLO'.
(	Left parenthesis	Punctuation character	IF (WS-A = 10) AND (WS-B = 5)
)	Right parenthesis	Punctuation character	IF (WS-A = 10) AND (WS-B = 5)
>	Greater than	Relation character	IF WS-A > 10
<	Less than	Relation character	IF WS-A < 10
:	Colon	Relation character	MOVE WS-VAR(1:10) TO WS-VAR1.
_	Underscore	User-defined word element	01 WS_VAR PIC X(10).
A - Z	Alphabet (uppercase)	Alphabetic characters	/
a - z	Alphabet (lowercase)	Alphabetic characters	/
0 - 9	Numeric characters	Numeric characters	/
The currency sign is the character with the value X'5B', regardless of the code page in effect. The assigned graphic character can be the dollar sign or a local currency sign. The quotation mark is the character with the value X'7F'.