Farley, Peter wrote: >I believe that statement in the JCL Reference is in error and needs to >be deleted or at the very least completely rewritten. My quite >substantial experience using this technique over the last 10-15 years >is that using JCL symbols as part of the definition of other JCL >symbols works flawlessly every time. There is no unpredictability. If >the symbol used to define one symbol isn't already defined, you get >the literal "&SYMB" value that you coded as part of the definition. >This works for both SET and PROC and EXEC statements, without any >failures or unpredictability that I have ever seen. The resulting >VALUE of that symbol may cause errors, but there is no >unpredictability to the symbol definition process.
>I cannot imagine any circumstance in which the result of defining one >JCL symbol using another JCL symbol would ever be unpredictable. >If there is any possible case where the result is unpredictable, IBM >should be required to specify the circumstances and explain why. I'd bet large coin that what this really means is "If you do this, you're likely to confuse yourself". As indeed you COULD-anyone who's gotten sloppy with Rexx stemmed variables (where this kind of usage is more common) has been burned that way! Of course in the examples Peter Hannigan provided, you're *trying* to play those games, so I think it's as safe as anything. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
