Character constants are most often used in simple, single term expressions, or as one of the terms of a relational operator. They can be used in an arithmetic expression provided that the character string has a valid numeric value.

The following rules apply for character constants:

• A character constant is coded as C'constantValue', where constantValue is a string of case sensitive characters of any length.

• There are no restrictions on the characters used in a character constant.

• If an apostrophe is required as part of the character string, it should be coded as two adjacent apostrophes with no intervening spaces. Two adjacent apostrophes must be coded in the same logical record. That is, one cannot be coded at the end of the logical record and the second at the beginning of the next logical record.

• The maximum length of a character constant is 256 bytes.