The NSYMBOL option controls the interpretation of the N symbol used in literals and PICTURE clauses, indicating whether national or DBCS processing is assumed.

NSYMBOL option syntax

Default is: NSYMBOL(NATIONAL)

Abbreviations are: NS(NAT|DBCS)

With NSYMBOL(NATIONAL):

• Data items defined with a PICTURE clause that consists only of the symbol N without the USAGE clause are treated as if the USAGE NATIONAL clause is specified.
• Literals of the form N". . ." or N'. . .' are treated as national literals.

With NSYMBOL(DBCS):

• Data items defined with a PICTURE clause that consists only of the symbol N without the USAGE clause are treated as if the USAGE DISPLAY-1 clause is specified.
• Literals of the form N". . ." or N'. . .' are treated as DBCS literals.

The NSYMBOL(DBCS) option provides compatibility with previous releases of IBM COBOL, and the NSYMBOL(NATIONAL) option makes the handling of the above language elements consistent with Standard COBOL 2002 in this regard.

NSYMBOL(NATIONAL) is recommended for applications that use Unicode data or object-oriented syntax for Java interoperability.