A comment is descriptive information about the database and can have a maximum of 255 characters long. You can have several lines of comments.

Text that is in one of the following formats can be included as a comment option in the DASDL definition or used anywhere in the database:

If a comment in one of the formats previously described is part of the syntax for a DASDL component, the comment is included when the database is invoked by a user program and stored in description tables with other database attributes. Otherwise, the comment is for reference or definition and is not stored in the description tables.

Each line of a reference or definition comment begins with a percent sign (%). The following is an example:

   % THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE COMMENT FORMAT THAT BEGINS EACH LINE WITH 
   % A PERCENT SIGN

The following diagram illustrates the syntax for a comment:

Comment

──┬─ " ──<string>── " ──────────────────────────────────────────────┬──┤
  ├─ COMMENT ── <any EBCDIC characters except semicolon (;)> ─┬─ ; ─┘
  └─ % ──<string>─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Example

The following data set declaration includes three comments. The first comment is enclosed in quotation marks ("). This comment is the only one of the three that is stored in the database description tables. The second comment is preceded by the word COMMENT and ends with a semicolon (;). The third comment is preceded by a percent sign (%).

D DATA SET "data set D contains 2 items"
  (
   A ALPHA(10);  COMMENT Item A takes alpha values;
   R REAL;       % Item R takes real values
  );