The ASCII string code can be used only with ASCII strings composed entirely of characters that have corresponding EBCDIC graphics. This is because the compiler recognizes only ASCII characters that have corresponding EBCDIC graphics.

The compiler translates each ASCII character into an 8-bit character. The rightmost seven bits are the ASCII representation of that character; the leftmost bit is 0.

ASCII characters that are not in the EBCDIC character set must be written as a hexadecimal string in which each pair of hexadecimal characters represents the internal code of one ASCII character, right-justified with a leading 0 bit.