A clause that consists of a single symbol followed by a colon is a label. The colon in this context implies a semicolon (clause separator), so no semicolon is required. Labels identify the targets of CALL instructions, SIGNAL instructions, and internal function calls. More than one label may precede any instruction. Labels are treated as null clauses and can be traced selectively to aid debugging.

Any number of successive clauses can be labels. This permits multiple labels before other clauses. Duplicate labels are permitted, but control passes only to the first of any duplicates in a program. The duplicate labels occurring later can be traced but cannot be used as a target of a CALL, SIGNAL, or function invocation.

REXX symbol and hexadecimal code cross-reference shows the REXX symbols and their hexadecimal values as found in the U.S. Code Page (037).

You can use DBCS characters in labels. See Double-byte character set (DBCS) support for more information.