A Hollerith constant is a string of printable ASCII characters preceded by the letter H. Before the H, there must be an unsigned, nonzero default integer constant stating the number of characters in the string (including blanks and tabs).
Hollerith constants are strings of 1 to 2000 characters. They are stored as byte strings, one character per byte.
The following examples demonstrate valid and invalid Hollerith constants:
| Valid | |
16HTODAY'S DATE IS: | |
1HB | |
4H ABC | |
| Invalid | Explanation |
3HABCD |
Wrong number of characters. |
0H
| Hollerith constants must contain at least one character. |