Calling system programs from COBOL is doable provided you use the correct calling conventions.
I OS we have two different ways of passing parms ... Generally see https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cobol-zos/6.3?topic=statements-call-statement by Reference, content or value... Check out https://www-40.ibm.com/servers/resourcelink/svc00100.nsf/pages/zOSV2R4sa380684/$file/ceea400_v2r4.pdf z/OS Language Environment Writing Interlanguage Communications Applications SA38-0684 For Additional Help Also : See https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/2.1.0?topic=program-writing-jcl-command-execution There are three different ways to run under the TSO TMP... IKJEFT01, IKJEFT1A and IKJEFT1B Usually IKJEFT01 will result in a return code of ZERO ( 0 ) provide SYSTSIN and SYSTSPRT DD statements exist and are valid IKJEFT1A will return S04C if a system abend occurs in a program or command be executed ... IKJEFT1B will return the return code of the last command's return code... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN