Primary Formatting of System Symbols

Certain system symbols must first be converted from their internal representation into a character representation before the end formatting can be applied to them. The following system symbols require a primary conversion:

• &DAY&, &MONTH&, &YEAR&, &HOURS&, &MINUTES&, &SECONDS&

  The relevant components are extracted from the system date or system time. Leading zeros are eliminated if the Z formatting option is specified.

• &DATE&

  The default behavior is that the system date is printed according to the setting in the user master record or according to the country-dependent formatting specified in a SET COUNTRY command.

  If a date mask has been defined (using SET DATE MASK), then the formatting specified there is used for the output.

• &TIME&

  The default behavior is that the current system time is printed in the form:

  hours:minutes:seconds

  If an alternative time mask is specified (using SET TIME MASK) then this mask overrides the default setting.

• &PAGE&, &NEXTPAGE&

  This symbols are initially converted using the options specified in the form of the page definition.

• &LDATE&

  This date representation is always formatted using the JPDAT conversion routine.

All remaining system symbols are treated by the primary conversion as a character string and therefore are not converted.

The end conversion is started when the primary conversion is complete.