SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause

The SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause is applicable only to single-byte character sets. Each character represented is an alphanumeric character.

SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS symbolic-character-1
Provides a means of specifying one or more symbolic characters. symbolic-character-1 is a user-defined word and must contain at least one alphabetic character. The same symbolic-character can appear only once in a SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause. The symbolic character can be a DBCS user-defined word.

The internal representation of symbolic-character-1 is the internal representation of the character that is represented in the specified character set. The following rules apply:

  • The relationship between each symbolic-character-1 and the corresponding integer-1 is by their position in the SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause. The first symbolic-character-1 is paired with the first integer-1; the second symbolic-character-1 is paired with the second integer-1; and so forth.
  • There must be a one-to-one correspondence between occurrences of symbolic-character-1 and occurrences of integer-1 in a SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause.
  • If the IN phrase is specified, integer-1 specifies the ordinal position of the character that is represented in the character set named by alphabet-name-2. This ordinal position must exist.
  • If the IN phrase is not specified, symbolic-character-1 represents the character whose ordinal position in the native character set is specified by integer-1.

    Ordinal positions are numbered starting from 1.