Many character string variables are coded as varying-length character strings. Varying-length strings are defined for user-defined names (section, class, ddname, member, symbol, part), lists of codes that must appear as a single parameter, and other parameter values that might vary in length. Varying-length character strings have a halfword length in the first two bytes of the string that contains the current length of the string not counting the length field itself. In the function call specifications in IEWBIND function reference, the length value associated with the string (for example, "1024-byte varying ...") indicates the maximum data length allowed in the length field.