On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:37:50 -0500, Chris Mason wrote: > >You'll be wanting symbol substitution in the instream data next! > Me, too!
When I do an SMP/E zone definition (assuming I'm still allowed to) I'd cherish being able to define several symbols with JCL SET statements, they apply them in JCL DD statements (as I can today), and likewise in instream IDCAMS SYSIN and SMP/E UCLIN data sets (which I can not. The suggestion of a horde of PARMLIB members selected by symbol values and concatenated falls short because of namespace constraints. And what happens if two symbols need to be substituted on the same line. UNIX directories with members selected by parameters would much relieve those constraints, as would a multitude of PS data sets. But from an ISV perspective, how do the parmeter libraries get set up and populated? I'd expect customers to see see either multiple PS data sets or multiple UNIX directories as unacceptable. I'd rather supply a JCLLIB INCLUDE member that the customer could tailor and which would perform all necessary substitutions in DD and SYSIN and UCLIN. >Oh! the answer to your question is that a procedure consists of job control >language statements and the card images between the //xxxxx DD * and /* >card images are not job control language statements. > Which is hardly an answer at all. On recognizing instream data, the reader shunts it aside to a data set and replaces it in the JCL with a reference to that data set. I see no reason that shouldn't work as well within a PROC as in open code. Symbol substitution would greatly complicate it; it would require substituting symbol values at the point of PROC call rather than at the point of PROC definition. Still a worthwhile facility. I'm accustomed to doing it in POSIX shell scripts; it would be equally useful in MVS JCL. Implementation: UNIX sh generally copies instream data to a file and then passes that file to the command executed. But it does the Right Thing (unlike JCL) and does the copy at the point of procedure call rather than at procedure definition, and substitutes symbols (optionally, of course) with their values at the point of call. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
