A DBCS-only symbol consists of only non-blank DBCS codes as indicated in Table 1.

A mixed DBCS symbol is formed by a concatenation of SBCS symbols, DBCS-only symbols, and other mixed DBCS symbols. In EBCDIC, the SO and SI bracket the DBCS symbols and distinguish them from the SBCS symbols.

The default value of a DBCS symbol is the symbol itself, with SBCS characters translated to uppercase.

A constant symbol must begin with an SBCS digit (0–9) or an SBCS period. The delimiter (period) in a compound symbol must be an SBCS character.