Specific guidelines for COBOL II/XL, include the following:
Use the character attributes table of the character set being used
to determine whether a character is alphabetic or numeric.
This table is available through a call to NLINFOitemnum=12.
Do not use the COBOL II/XL ALPHABETIC and NUMERIC class tests
to determine this (for example, IF data-item IS ALPHABETIC).
Do not use input-output translation by COBOL II/XL from an EBCDIC
character set by means of the ALPHABET-NAME and CODE SET clause.
Use the NLTRANSLATE intrinsic.
Use the NLS date and time formatting intrinsics for display
purposes. Do not use TIME-OF-DAY and CURRENT-DATE.
These items are formatted in the conventional American way and
are unsuitable for use in many countries.
Use the COLLATING SEQUENCE ISlanguage-name or the
COLLATING SEQUENCE ISlanguage-ID phrase in the
enhanced SORT and MERGE statements to specify the language name or
number whose collating sequence is to be used.
Do not use the COLLATING SEQUENCE IS alphabet-name
phrase for sorting and/or merging in COBOL II/XL.
In condition-name data descriptions (88-level items), avoid
the THRU option in the VALUE clause (for
example, 88 SELECTED-ITEMS VALUE "A" THRU "F").
