Allen, I respectfully disagree:
1) how are two options "cleaner"? The usage would be ugly... the JCL coder would have to think - let me see, should I use PARM with <100 or PARMX with more? and what if both are coded? 2) a separate program api would require modifications to any program that can already support >100 character parm fields, which is probably a good percentage. Having an LE option that controls whether a program can see longer parms allows you to turn it on for programs that you know work (or turn off for programs that you know don't, if your installation default is "enabled"), without actually changing the program. Also, a program can automatically enable > 100 PARMs by including an LE option CSECT in its load module (or a language facility like the C "pragma" statement). FWIW, it seems likely to me that most installations would want the default to be "disabled". So, assuming that the default is "disabled", you would get an abend, or maybe an error from the initiator, if you accidently coded a PARM that resolved to > 100 characters. The program would never be able to execute and cause problems. This seems fine to me. Again, I'm not talking about how z/OS changes system code or control blocks to support > 100 character PARMS, only how you could control whether you cause incompatible user programs to fail. Kirk Wolf Dovetailed Technologies http://dovetail.com On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Gainsford, Allen <allen.gainsf...@eds.com>wrote: > > Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that an LE option could be used to > > control whether a user batch program would see > 100 character parms. > > I'm suggesting that z/OS itself be extended to support > 100 character > PARMS > > (somehow), but that an LE option would control whether a user program > would > > ever see > 100 characters. > > Seems to me that it would be cleaner, and probably make more sense, if > JCL > supported a PARMX parameter which was *not* passed to programs in the > normal > way. Instead, provide a way for programs to *ask* for the PARMX: a > macro > for Assembler programs, and an LE call for HLLs. This would not break > any > compatibility at all. > > Regards, > Allen > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO > Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
