The %REPLACE Statement

The %REPLACE statement specifies that an identifier is to be replaced by a specified constant or other name during compilation. The general form of this statement is:

%REPLACE name BY constant-or-name;

Beginning at the point at which the %REPLACE statement is encountered, each occurrence of name that follows the %REPLACE statement is replaced by the specified constant or other name until the end of compilation.

The %REPLACE statement is often used to supply the sizes of tables or to give names to special constants whose meaning would not otherwise be obvious. For example:

%REPLACE TRUE BY '1'B;
%REPLACE TABLE_SIZE BY 400;
%REPLACE MOTOR_POOL BY 5;
%REPLACE X BY -3.0E0;
DECLARE X(TABLE_SIZE) FIXED STATIC; 
DO K = 1 TO TABLE_SIZE;
IF DEPARTMENT_NUMBER = MOTOR_POOL 
   THEN DO;
    .
    .
    .

Both the %REPLACE and %INCLUDE statements operate on the program text without regard to the meaning of the text.

The %REPLACE statement substitutes all subsequent occurrences of the name without regard to the block structure of the module, as explained in the section Blocks.