Alphanumeric fields (strings)

Declaring text

Text lives in PIC X fields. The size in parentheses sets the exact length, and the field always holds that many characters, padded with spaces on the right.

01 WS-GREETING PIC X(30) VALUE "Hello". 01 WS-LETTER PIC X.

Moving text

MOVE copies fields character by character. A shorter source pads with spaces; a longer source is truncated on the right. MOVE CORRESPONDING moves matching names between groups:

MOVE "COBOL" TO WS-GREETING. MOVE WS-FIRST-NAME TO WS-LAST-NAME.

Trimming spaces

Fixed-length fields keep trailing spaces, which shows up in reports and file output. Inspect with TALLYING counts characters, and STRING with delimiters rebuilds clean values:

INSPECT WS-GREETING TALLYING WS-N FOR TRAILING SPACES.

Next: Constants: level 78 and VALUE

Article author: Arthur Isaev