Rules for separators

A separator is a string of one or more punctuation characters.

In the following description, {} (curly braces) enclose each separator, and b represents a space. Anywhere a space is used as a separator or as part of a separator, more than one space can be used.

Space {b}

A space can immediately precede or follow any separator except:

The opening pseudo-text delimiter, where the preceding space is required.
Within quotation marks. Spaces between quotation marks are considered part of the alphanumeric literal; they are not considered separators.

Period {.b}, Comma {,b}, Semicolon {;b}

A separator comma is composed of a comma followed by a space. A separator period is composed of a period followed by a space. A separator semicolon is composed of a semicolon followed by a space.

The separator period must be used only to indicate the end of a sentence, or as shown in formats. The separator comma and separator semicolon can be used anywhere the separator space is used.

In the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION, each paragraph must end with a separator period.
In the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION, the SOURCE-COMPUTER, OBJECT-COMPUTER, SPECIAL-NAMES, and I-O-CONTROL paragraphs must each end with a separator period. In the FILE-CONTROL paragraph, each file-control entry must end with a separator period.
In the DATA DIVISION, file (FD), sort/merge file (SD), and data description entries must each end with a separator period.
In the PROCEDURE DIVISION, separator commas or separator semicolons can separate statements within a sentence and operands within a statement. Each sentence and each procedure must end with a separator period.

Parentheses { ( } ... { ) }

Except in pseudo-text, parentheses can appear only in balanced pairs of left and right parentheses. They delimit subscripts, a list of function arguments, reference-modifiers, arithmetic expressions, or conditions.

Colon { : }

The colon is a separator and is required when shown in general formats.

Quotation marks {"} ... {"}

An opening quotation mark must be immediately preceded by a space or a left parenthesis. A closing quotation mark must be immediately followed by a separator space, comma, semicolon, period, right parenthesis, or pseudo-text delimiter. Quotation marks must appear as balanced pairs. They delimit alphanumeric literals, except when the literal is continued (see Continuation lines).

Apostrophes {'} ... {'}

An opening apostrophe must be immediately preceded by a space or a left parenthesis. A closing apostrophe must be immediately followed by a separator space, comma, semicolon, period, right parenthesis, or pseudo-text delimiter. Apostrophes must appear as balanced pairs. They delimit alphanumeric literals, except when the literal is continued (see Continuation lines).

Null-terminated literal delimiters {Z"} ... {"}, {Z'} ... {'}

The opening delimiter must be immediately preceded by a space or a left parenthesis. The closing delimiter must be immediately followed by a separator space, comma, semicolon, period, right parenthesis, or pseudo-text delimiter.

DBCS literal delimiters {G"} ... {"}, {G'} ... {'}, {N"} ... {"}, {N'} ... {'}

UTF-8 literal delimiters {U"} ... {"}, {U'} ... {'}, {UX"} ... {"}, {UX'} ... {'}

National literal delimiters {N"} ... {"}, {N'} ... {'}, {NX"} ... {"}, {NX'} ... {'}

Pseudo-text delimiters {b==} ... {==b}

An opening pseudo-text delimiter must be immediately preceded by a space. A closing pseudo-text delimiter must be immediately followed by a separator space, comma, semicolon, or period. Pseudo-text delimiters must appear as balanced pairs. They delimit pseudo-text. (See COPY statement.)

Any punctuation character included in a PICTURE character-string, a comment character-string, or an alphanumeric literal is not considered a punctuation character, but is part of the character-string or literal.