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HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

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HP COBOL
Reference Manual


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SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS CARRIAGE-RET ESCAPE ARE 14 28
  • If the IN phrase is not specified, symbol-char represents the character, in the native character set, that has the ordinal position specified by char-val.

    Note

    The ordinal position is one greater than the internal representation of the character. For example, the character A is in ordinal position 66. Its internal representation is decimal 65 (hexadecimal 41).
  • If the IN phrase is specified, char-val represents the character that has the ordinal position specified by the IN alpha-name phrase.

    CLASS Clause

    1. The CLASS clause relates a name to a specified set of characters in that clause. class-name can be referenced only in a class condition. The characters specified by the values of the literals in this clause define the set of characters of which this class-name consists.
    2. The value of each numeric literal specifies the ordinal number of a character in the native character set. This value must not exceed the value that represents the number of characters in the native character set.
    3. The value of each nonnumeric literal specifies the actual character in the native character set. If the nonnumeric literal contains multiple characters, each character in the literal is included in the set of characters identified by class-name.
    4. The THROUGH phrase specifies a set of contiguous characters in the native character set. The first character is first-literal; the last character is last-literal. The characters specified by a given THROUGH phrase can be specified in ascending or descending order.

    CURRENCY SIGN Clause

    1. In the CURRENCY SIGN clause, char specifies the PICTURE clause currency symbol. It can be any printable character from the computer character set except:
      • 0 through 9
      • A, B, C, D, P, R, S, V, X, Z, the lowercase characters a to z, or the space
      • Asterisk (*), plus sign (+), minus sign (-), comma (,), period (.), semicolon (;), quotation mark ("), equal sign (=), slash (/), left parenthesis ( ( ), or right parenthesis ( ) )
    2. The CURRENCY SIGN clause cannot contain a symbolic-character or figurative constant.
    3. If there is no CURRENCY SIGN clause, the default currency sign used for the PICTURE clause is the "$" symbol.
      On OpenVMS, if you define the logical name SYS$CURRENCY at DCL command level prior to compilation, the quoted character string to which you define it will be the currency string. To do this, prior to compiling the COBOL program, issue the following DCL command:


      $ DEFINE SYS$CURRENCY "quoted-character-string"
      

      The COBOL compiler will utilize the first character of this string as the currency symbol for the program.
      Subsequently, the system default value of SYS$CURRENCY can be restored for the process with the following DCL command:


      $ DEASSIGN SYS$CURRENCY   <>
      

      The default currency sign can also be established based on the nationality compiler option, depending on the keyword, as follows:
      US (default) The default currency sign and symbol are the dollar sign ($), and Japanese language support features are disabled.
      JAPAN The default currency sign and symbol are the Yen sign (¥) (which is not overridden by a SYS$CURRENCY definition), and Japanese language support features are enabled, including national character user-defined-words, data items (PIC N), and literals (N"").

    CURRENCY SIGN Clause (Alpha, I64)

    1. To use CURRENCY SIGN IS literal-7, you must compile the program with the /RESERVED_WORDS=200X qualifier. Without that qualifier, you can specify only CURRENCY SIGN IS char, and specify it only once.
    2. The CURRENCY SIGN IS literal-7 clause specifies a currency string that is placed into numeric-edited data items when they are used as receiving items and de-edited from a data item when the data item is used as a sending item that has a numeric or numeric-edited receiving item. The clause also determines which symbol shall be used in a picture character string to specify the presence of this currency string. This symbol is referred to as the currency symbol.
      literal-7 represents the value of the currency string.
      If the CURRENCY SIGN clause is specified with the PICTURE SYMBOL phrase, literal-8 is the currency symbol; if the clause is specified without the PICTURE SYMBOL phrase, literal-7 is the currency symbol, and it must be one character in length.
      If the currency symbol is a lowercase letter, it is treated as its uppercase equivalent.
    3. If the PICTURE SYMBOL phrase is not specified, literal-7 must consist of a single character that is not one of the following:
      • 0 through 9
      • A, B, C, D, E, N, P, R, S, V, X, Z, or the lowercase equivalents; or the space
      • Asterisk (*), plus sign (+), minus sign (-), comma (,), period (.), semicolon (;), quotation mark ("), equal sign (=), slash (/), left parenthesis ( ( ), or right parenthesis ( ) )
    4. If the PICTURE SYMBOL phrase is specified, literal-7 can have any length and:
      • Must contain at least one nonspace character, and
      • Can consist of any characters from the computer's character set except for the digits 0 through 9 and the characters asterisk (*), plus sign (+), minus sign (-), comma (,), and period (.)
    5. literal-8 can be any character from the computer's character set except for the following:
      • 0 through 9
      • A, B, C, D, E, N, P, R, S, V, X, Z, or the lowercase equivalents; or the space
      • Asterisk (*), plus sign (+), minus sign (-), comma (,), period (.), semicolon (;), quotation mark ("), equal sign (=), slash (/), left parenthesis ( ( ), or right parenthesis ( ) )
      <>

    DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA Clause

    1. The DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA clause exchanges the functions of the comma and period in: (1) the PICTURE clause character-string and (2) numeric literals.

    CURSOR IS Clause (Alpha, I64)

    1. The CURSOR IS clause specifies the initial position of the cursor at the start of an ACCEPT (Format 5) statement. If cursor-position is within an input or update field on the screen, then the initial cursor position is at the start of that field. If the CURSOR IS clause is not specified, or if cursor-position is not within an input or update field on the screen, the cursor's initial position is at the start of the first input or update field of the screen. The cursor-position is updated upon completion of the ACCEPT statement to contain the position of the cursor when the ACCEPT terminated.
    2. In the CURSOR IS clause, if cursor-position is four characters in length, the first two characters represent the line number, and the second two the column number. If cursor-position is six characters in length, the first three characters represent the line number, and the second three the column number.

    CRT STATUS IS Clause (Alpha, I64)

    1. If the CRT STATUS IS clause is specified, crt-status-code is updated after every ACCEPT (Format 5) statement. The first two characters are a termination code that indicates the cause of the termination of the ACCEPT operation. (The third character is currently not defined, and is reserved for future use.) The termination codes are explained in Table 4-1.

      Command Line Arguments (Alpha, I64)

    2. The ARGUMENT-NUMBER and ARGUMENT-VALUE clauses are used to process command line arguments. The DISPLAY statement is used to select and modify the values, and the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve the values.

      Environment Variables and System Logicals (Alpha, I64)

    3. The ENVIRONMENT-NAME and ENVIRONMENT-VALUE clauses are used to process environment variables and system logicals. The DISPLAY statement is used to select and modify the values, and the ACCEPT statement is used to retrieve the values.

    Table 4-1 CRT STATUS Termination Codes (Alpha, I64)
    First Character Second Character Meaning
    `0' `0' Terminator key pressed by the operator; normal completion
    `0' `1' Auto-skip out of the last field; normal completion
    `1' x`00'---x`1A' User-defined function key number for F1--F20 and the Find through Next keys 1
    `9' x`00' No items falling within the screen 1

    1The second character contains a hexadecimal value. An example of how to examine this value is given in the Examples section.


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