A literal is a character-string whose value is specified by:

    1)  the ordered set of characters it contains, or
    2)  a reserved word that is a figurative constant.

  Every literal belongs to one of two types: numeric or nonnumeric.

1  –  figurative_constants

  Figurative constants name and refer to specific constant values
  generated by the compiler.  The singular and plural forms of figurative
  constants are equivalent and interchangeable.  The figurative constants
  supported by VSI COBOL are ZERO, ZEROS, ZEROES, SPACE, SPACES,
  HIGH-VALUE, HIGH-VALUES, LOW-VALUE, LOW-VALUES, QUOTE, QUOTES, ALL
  literal, and symbolic-character.

2  –  hexadecimal_literals

  A hexadecimal literal (a HP extension to nonnumeric literals) is
  a character string of 2 to 256 hexadecimal digits.  It is delimited on
  the left by the separator 'X' (or 'x') immediately followed by a
  quotation mark (") or apostrophe ('); on the right it is delimited by a
  matching quotation mark or apostrophe.  The character string consists
  only of pairs of hexadecimal digits representing a value ranging from
  00 to FF; hence, only the characters '0' through '9', 'A' through 'F',
  and 'a' through 'f' are valid.

  The value of a hexadecimal literal is the composite value of the paired
  hexadecimal representations.  The compiler truncates hexadecimal
  literals to a maximum of 128 hexadecimal representations (pairs of
  hexadecimal digits).

  A hexadecimal literal can be used interchangeably wherever a nonnumeric
  literal can appear in VSI COBOL syntax.  (Note that hexadecimal
  literals cannot be used as operands in arithmetic statements.)

3  –  nonnumeric_literals

  A nonnumeric literal is a character-string of 0 to 256 characters.  It
  is delimited on both ends by quotation marks (") or apostrophes (').  A
  nonnumeric literal delimited by apostrophes is treated in the same
  manner as a nonnumeric literal delimited by quotation marks.

  The value of a nonnumeric literal is the value of the characters in the
  character-string.  It does not include the quotation marks (or
  apostrophes) that delimit the character-string.  All other punctuation
  characters in the nonnumeric literal are part of its value.

  The compiler truncates nonnumeric literals to a maximum of 256
  characters.

4  –  numeric_literals

  A numeric literal is a character-string of 1 to 33 characters selected
  from the digits 0 through 9, the plus sign, the minus sign, and the
  decimal point.

  The value of a numeric literal is the algebraic quantity represented by
  the characters in the literal.  Its size equals the number of digits in
  the character-string.

5  –  floating_point_literals

  A floating point literal is a character-string whose value is specified
  by 4 to 37 characters selected from the digits 0 to 9, the plus sign,
  the minus sign, the decimal point and the letter E (upper or lower
  case).

  The value of a floating point literal is the algebraic quantity
  represented by the characters in the literal that precede the "E"
  multiplied by ten raised to the power of the algebraic quantity
  represented by the characters in the literal following the "E".