> column 1 is reserved for carriage control. That seems to conflate source > code with SYSPRINT.
It does seem to, but in fact PL/I supports source listing formatting using ANSI carriage control. "The MARGINS option specifies which part of each compiler input record contains PL/I statements, and the position of the ANS control character that formats the listing, ..." -- PL/I P/G Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 5:43 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: PL/I vs. JCL On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 15:42:35 -0700, Charles Mills wrote: . > >//SYSIN DD DATA,DLM=xx solves the /* in column 1 problem. > +1 In one case I resorted to an exhaustive search to find a digraph not occurring in a NETDATA sysin. Ugh! >PL/I supports specifiable margins, so PL/I source can start in column 1. > Which is small solace to the programmer adopting existing sout\rce code. An earlier ply, not quoted here, asserted that column 1 is reserved for carriage control. That seems to conflate source code with SYSPRINT. A co-worker once supplied some Rexx, all indented one column, presumably to avoid the "/*" problem. Didn't work under OMVS, which appears to have a restriction (undocumented) that "/* Rexx ..." begin in col. 1. >I recall that the /* is a hardware feature of some card readers. I believe a >2540 card reader generated some special status (unit exception?) when it >read a card with /* in the first two columns, so one might ask "which came >first: JCL or the hardware feature?" > Does TSO honor "ALLOCATDE DD(SYSUT1) DSN(*) DLM('xx') ... ? The DLM must be 2 characters in JES3 and up to 8 in JES2 (Conway again). Underreaching. It should be long enough to support a random number of cryptographic strength. >-----Original Message----- >From: Phil Smith III >Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 3:09 PM > >A friend writes: > (As in: "Doctor, my friend thinks she might ..."?) >In a conversation elsewhere I mentioned the oops between JCL using /* as end >of dataset and PL/I using /* */ for comment brackets - meaning that PL/I had >to start in column 2 to prevent a comment from being interpreted as JCL. >Oopsie. Does anyone remember which came first? There was some rumor that I >no longer remember that one group didn't like the other group so some of >this done on purpose. > Conway's Law, an IBM guiding principle, escalated to bitter conflict. But, yes, fact checking needed. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
