Using national literals

You can use either of these notations:

• N"character-data"
• N'character-data'

If you compile with the option NSYMBOL(DBCS), the literal prefix character N specifies a DBCS literal, not a national literal.

To specify a national literal as a hexadecimal value, use the prefix NX. You can use either of these notations:

• NX"hexadecimal-digits"
• NX'hexadecimal-digits'

Each of the following MOVE statements sets the national data item Y to the UTF-16 value of the characters 'AB':

01 Y pic NN usage national.
. . .
    Move NX"00410042" to Y
    Move N"AB"        to Y
    Move "AB"         to Y

Do not use alphanumeric hexadecimal literals in contexts that call for national literals, because such usage is easily misunderstood. For example, the following statement also results in moving the UTF-16 characters 'AB' (not the hexadecimal bit pattern C1C2) to Y, where Y is defined as USAGE NATIONAL:

Move X"C1C2" to Y

You cannot use national literals in the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph or as program-names. You can use a national literal to name an object-oriented method in the METHOD-ID paragraph or to specify a method-name in an INVOKE statement.