As long as we're talking about item lists...

What has worked well in terms of both the mechanics of creating the list,
with an eye towards future maintenance?

Specifically, the list does not allow embedded blanks.

We can use

        05  DB-LIST-CUST-MSTR.
            10  PIC X(36)  VALUE "CUSTOMER-NUMBER,CUSTOMER-NAME,CUST".
            10  PIC X(13)  VALUE "OMER-CONTACT;".

But that's awful (I can't count ;) and not terribly maintainable.
Putting them one per line doesn't work much better:

        05  DB-LIST-CUST-MSTR.
            10  PIC X(15)  VALUE "CUSTOMER-NUMBER".
            10  PIC X(14)  VALUE ",CUSTOMER-NAME".
            10  PIC X(17)  VALUE ",CUSTOMER-CONTACT".
            10  PIC X(01)  VALUE ";".

Again, because I can't count.  (In the past couple years, I've gotten
into the habit of putting commas in front rather than at the end, because
I figure I'm more likely to add something to the end than I am to insert
it in the beginning.)

What are YOUR (former ;) secrets for easily maintaining this list?

--Glenn Cole
  Software al dente, Inc.
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