A separator consists of one or more contiguous characters. Each of the following is a separator unless it occurs in a literal or a PICTURE character-string:
A space is a separator. Anywhere where a space can be used as a separator or as part of a separator, it is also possible to use more than one space. All spaces which follow the separators comma, semicolon or period are part of these separators (i.e. they are not treated as a space separator).
Commas and semicolons can only be used as separators when they are immediately followed by a space. They can be used to improve the readability of the program anywhere where a space could also be used as a separator.
A period can only be used as a separator when immediately followed by a space. It may only be used to indicate the end of a sentence, or as shown in formats.
Left (opening) and right (closing) parentheses are separators. When used outside of pseudo-text, they must appear as balanced pairs of left and right parentheses used to delimit subscripts, lists of function arguments, reference modifiers, arithmetic expressions, conditions or the repetition factor of a PICTURE symbol.
Opening and closing literal delimiters are separators. Either a single quote (’) or a double quote (“) can be used as quotation marks in the literal delimiter.
Opening literal delimiters:
a quotation mark
the 2 characters N’, N", X’ and X"
the 3 characters NX’ and NX"
Closing literal delimiters:
a single quote if the opening literal delimiter used a single quote
a double quote if the opening literal delimiter used a double quote
An opening literal delimiter must be immediately preceded either by a space, an opening parenthesis or an opening pseudo-text delimiter; a closing literal delimiter must be immediately followed by one of the separators space, comma, semicolon, period, closing parenthesis or closing pseudo-text delimiter. Separators which immediately precede the opening literal delimiter or immediately follow the closing literal delimiter are not part of the separator.
Pseudo-text delimiters are separators. An opening pseudo-text delimiter must be immediately preceded by a space; a closing pseudo-text delimiter must be immediately followed by one of the separators space, comma, semicolon or period.
Pseudo-text delimiters may only appear in balanced pairs delimiting pseudo-text.A colon is a separator and must be specified when required in the general formats.
A space used as a separator may immediately precede all separators unless
the reference format rules prohibit it
it is followed by the closing literal delimiter; in this case, a preceding space is considered part of the non-numeric literal and not as a separator.
A space used as a separator may immediately follow any separator except the opening literal delimiter. A space following the opening literal delimiter is considered part of the non-numeric literal and not as a separator.