Continuation Rules

The fields that may be continued are:

Any free-form statement
The keywords field on the control specification
The keywords field on the file description specification
The keywords field on the definition specification
The Extended factor-2 field on the calculation specification
The constant/editword field on the output specification
The Name field on the definition or the procedure specification

General rules for continuation are as follows:

The continuation line must be a valid line for the specification being continued (H, F, D, C, or O in position 6)
No special characters should be used when continuing specifications across multiple lines, except when a literal or name must be split. For example, the following pairs are equivalent. In the first pair, the plus sign (+) is an operator, even when it appears at the end of a line. In the second pair, the plus sign is a continuation character.
```
C                   eval      x = a + b
C                   eval      x = a +
C                                 b

C                   eval      x = 'abc'
C                   eval      x = 'ab+
C                                  c'   
```
Only blank lines, empty specification lines or comment lines are allowed between continued lines
The continuation can occur after a complete token. Tokens are
- Names (for example, keywords, file names, field names)
- Parentheses
- The separator character (:)
- Expression operators
- Built-in functions
- Special words
- Literals
A continuation can also occur within a literal
- For character, date, time, and timestamp literals
  - A hyphen (-) indicates continuation is in the first available position in the continued field
  - A plus (+) indicates continuation with the first non-blank character in or past the first position in the continued field
- For graphic literals
  - Either the hyphen (-) or plus (+) can be used to indicate a continuation.
  - Each segment of the literal must be enclosed by shift-out and shift-in characters.
  - When the a graphic literal is assembled, only the first shift-out and the last shift-in character will be included.
  - Regardless of which continuation character is used for a graphic literal, the literal continues with the first character after the shift-out character on the continuation line. Spaces preceding the shift-out character are ignored.
- For numeric literals
  - No continuation character is used
  - A numeric literal continues with a numeric character or decimal point on the continuation line in the continued field
  - Continuation for numeric literals is not allowed in free-form statements
- For hexadecimal and UCS-2 literals
  - Either a hyphen (-) or a plus (+) can be used to indicate a continuation
  - The literal will be continued with the first non-blank character on the next line

A continuation can also occur within a name in free-format entries

In the name entry for Definition and Procedure specifications. For more information on continuing names in the name entry, see Definition and Procedure Specification Name Field.
In the keywords entry for File and Definition specifications.
In the extended factor 2 entry of Calculation specifications.

You can split a qualified name at a period, as shown below:

 C                   EVAL      dataStructureWithALongName.
 C                               subfieldWithAnotherLongName = 5

If a name is not split at a period, code an ellipsis (...) at the end of the partial name, with no intervening blanks.

Example

*.. 1 ...+... 2 ...+... 3 ...+... 4 ...+... 5 ...+... 6 ...+... 7 ...+... 8
DName++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DName+++++++++++ETDsFrom+++To/L+++IDc.Keywords+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
D                                     Keywords-cont++++++++++++++++++++++++
* Define a 10 character field with a long name.
* The second definition is a pointer initialized to the address
* of the variable with the long name.
D QuiteLongFieldNameThatCannotAlwaysFitInOneLine...
D                 S             10A
D Ptr             S               *   inz(%addr(QuiteLongFieldName...
D                                               ThatCannotAlways...
D                                               FitInOneLine))
D ShorterName     S              5A

*.. 1 ...+... 2 ...+... 3 ...+... 4 ...+... 5 ...+... 6 ...+... 7 ...+... 8
CL0N01Factor1+++++++Opcode(E)+Extended-factor2+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
C                             Extended-factor2-++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* Use the long name in an expression
* Note that you can split the name wherever it is convenient.
C                   EVAL          QuiteLongFieldName...
C                                 ThatCannotAlwaysFitInOneLine = 'abc'

* You can split any name this way
C                   EVAL          P...
C                                 tr = %addr(Shorter...
C                                 Name)