Variables, Constants, and Literal Strings

Comprehensive rules for variables, constants, and literal strings are contained in the Open Object Rexx: Reference .

Rexx imposes few rules on variable names. A variable name can be up to 250 characters long, with the following restrictions:

• The first character must be A-Z, a-z, !, ?, or _ .
• The rest of the characters may be A-Z, a-z, !, ?, or _, ., or 0-9.
• The period ( .) has a special meaning for Rexx variables. Do not use it in a variable name until you understand the rules for forming compound symbols.

The variable name can be typed and queried in uppercase, mixed-case, or lowercase characters. A variable name in uppercase characters, for example, can also be queried in lowercase or mixed-case characters. Rexx translates lowercase letters in variables to uppercase before using them. Thus the variables names " abc", "Abc", and "ABC" all refer to the single variable "ABC". If you reference a variable name that has not yet been set, the name, in uppercase, is returned.

Literal strings in Rexx are delimited by quotation marks (either ' or "). Examples of literal strings are:

If you need to use quotation marks within a literal string, use quotation marks of the other type to delimit the string. For example:

There is another way to do this. Within a literal string, a pair of quotation marks of the same type that starts the string is interpreted as a single character of that type. For example: