>In many other cases, there are trailing blanks and the programer >considers them to be significant. That's why ISPF has a PRESERVE >option. The PARMDD rules appear to thwart the programmers' >and ISPF's intent here.
I'm afraid that some of the comments on this thread do not reflect real world practical usage. The EXEC PGM= PARM= string is not typically (ever?) used in this way. Maybe that's because of the long-standing implementation, but that is reality. If you have need for blanks within the result, you can get them (except perhaps trailing blanks after the last record). That, after all, is the true requirement. I don't see any thwarting, in practice. The PARMDD file (which can, as was asked, be a z/OS Unix file) is read shortly before the jobstep program attach. If it is instream, symbol substitution can be asked for and gotten. It utilizes the JES instream data set processing. Peter Relson z/OS Core Technology Design ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
