Defining the escape character in data records

The DATA-ESCAPE-CHARACTER operand of the SET-PROCEDURE-OPTIONS
command is used to specify which character is used as an escape character for expression replacement in data records. The operand values which DATA-ESCAPE-CHARACTER may take are *NONE, *STD, &, #, *, @ and $.

• *NONE is the default setting, i.e. there is no escape character. (However, an escape character must normally be declared for utility routines without an SDF interface if replacement within data records is to be carried out.)

• If the setting is *STD, the & character is used as the escape character.

• By specifying &, #, *, @ or $, the corresponding character can be defined as the escape character.

For further details see section “Expression replacement”.