I always got the feeling that orignal OS/360 JCL programmers either stole the parsing code from the then-existant assembler, or vice versa. JCL and old style assembler just seem to be so syntactically similar that somebody must have swiped some code. And, again, we go back to old style keypunches as to what the original JCL thought was reasonable to expect. Keying in lower case on a 026 - is that even possible? I wish that JCL would "advance" like HLASM did. HLASM accepts lower case for things, but automatically upper cases them unless they are in ' or " strings.
On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Paul Gilmartin <paulgboul...@aim.com>wrote: > On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 11:28:42 -0600, John McDowell wrote: > > > >For the specific case we are talking about (e.g. the use of lower case > alphabetic characters in PROC/INCLUDE names) I would actually feel much > more comfortable if the parser allowed for them to be treated differently > than say a ddname. The prospect of trying to accommodate lower case > alphabetic characters in a ddname is well into the "boiling the ocean" > category :-( > > > >I will note in passing that outside of the context of the z/OS Unix > filesystem it is difficult (but not impossible) to create a PROC or INCLUDE > (member name in a PDS or PDS/E) with lower case alphabetic characters, to > the best of my knowledge none of the predominate development tools (e.g. > ISPF, etc.) allow it. I take no position on whether they should, I simply > observe they do not. Given this circumstance pursuing lower case > alphabetic characters in PROC/INCLUDE names seems to take us perilously > close to the "boiling ocean" that I am so desperate to avoid :-) > > > These ojects are easily enough created/manipulated with Assembler, > and Binder can easily create load modules (not only program objects) > with mixed case names. I think it's a dog-in-the-manger attitude for > JCL to prohibit what some (not all) utilities readily support. > > I have always held that syntactic restrictions should be enforced at > the most basic level: if STOW permits the name, higher level > programming interfaces shouldn't prohibit it. If it is the intent of > the design to allow only upper case characters in names, or to make > names case-insensitive, that restriction or behavior should be built > into STOW, not implemented haphazardly, inconsistently, in higher > level interfaces. > > -- gil > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough hunchbacks. Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
