Literals are constants.

literals are used to store constant values which are not changed even after program execution

The literals with single quotes are Characters and can have a width of only one. Ex: 'y' or 'a' etc

Strings cannot be declared using single quotes. They have to be declared with double quotes.

there are three types of constants in COBOL

1. numeric literals

2. figurative constants

3. non-numeric literals

A literal is either a variable or a negated variable.