Class and Category of Data

Every elementary data item, every literal, and every function has a class and a category. The class and category of a data item are defined by its picture character string, by the BLANK WHEN ZERO clause, or by its usage; the class and category of a literal are defined in the section Literals.

ANS85 and the class and category of an intrinsic function are specified by the definition of that intrinsic function (see the topic Intrinsic Functions).

The category of a group item is alphanumeric.

The following table depicts the relationship of categories to classes of data for elementary items.

Table 1. Category and class relationships for elementary items
Class Category
Alphabetic
  • Alphabetic
Alphanumeric
  • Numeric edited
  • Alphanumeric edited
  • Alphanumeric
  • VSC2MF  DBCS
Index
  • Index
National
  • National
Numeric
  • Numeric
  • OSVSVSC2MF  Internal floating-point
  • OSVSVSC2MF  External floating-point
Object
  • ISO2002MF Object-reference
Pointer
  • ISO2002VSC2MF Pointer
  • MFCOB370  Procedure-pointer