NLS Operations

When you run a program which has been compiled with the NLS directive set, certain operations are carried out in accordance with the rules of the language specified in the LANG environment variable.

Other language-dependent features, such as the currency character are controlled by the appropriate compiler option.

Certain NLS definitions have characters other than the ASCII characters 0-9 defined as numerics. Such characters are not valid in numeric picture strings, nor can they be used in numeric operations. Note that in all NLS operations, a numeric item must be formed only from the ASCII digits 0-9, with or without the ASCII signs "+" or "-" as well as other picture characters. There is no means of automatically converting the NLS representation to the ASCII equivalent.

The following are not affected by NLS:

• String comparisons
• SORT and MERGE Key Comparisons when SORT facility is in use
• Case Conversion via UPPERCASE and LOWERCASE built-ins
• Character conversion between EBCDIC and ASCII via PLIASCII and PLIEBCDIC built-ins
• Collating Sequence Operations
• Editing and computations on PICTURE data