On 2014-01-27, at 21:11, Steve Comstock wrote:
> On 1/27/2014 9:03 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Jan 2014 20:10:04 -0500, Gerhard Postpischil wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/27/2014 8:03 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>>>> A matter of opinion, of course. If I had cautiously coded
>>>> "PARM='&WOMBAT._1'",
>>>> I would be protected from the hypothetical change, but get a changed
>>>> behavior if I left &WOMBAT undefined. I think from the beginning the
>>>> JCL R/C (whatever) should have made reference to an undefined symbol
>>>> an error.
>>>
>>> That wouldn't have been palatable, as your undefined symbol would have
>>> been valid as a temporary data set name. As today, a temporary may have
>>>
>> I could have defined it.
>>
>>> one or two ampersands, and it's way too late to change that. It might
>>> have made more sense to use a different character, e.g., a percent sign,
>>> to introduce variables (but clashing with the PROC convention).
>>>
>> Sure, but couldn't it have been done right five decades ago, if only
>> the designers hadn't been too stressed by deadlines to think clearly.
>>
>> By experiment, what you say is true. I'm considerably surprised.
>> So, then, why do I get:
>>
>> 8 //DDFOUR DD
>> DISP=(,PASS),DSN=&&&&FOUR,UNIT=SYSALLDA,SPACE=(1,0)
>> STMT NO. MESSAGE
>> 8 IEFC627I INCORRECT USE OF AMPERSAND IN THE DSN FIELD
>>
>> By JCL rules, two ampersands represent one ampersand, so four ampersands
>> represent two ampersands, and "&&FOUR" is a valid temp DSN.
>
> Huh? & is not a recognized construct in JCL; that's HTML (and some
> other places). Even if you uppercased it, &&&& simply doesn't
> mean anything. Now, the message may be less than clear, but that's
> almost to be expected in JCL.
>
LISTSERV did it to me. Conjugate LISTSERV. Trying again; copying
and pasting directly from the "Send Message" panel of IBM-MAIN
web interface:
By experiment, what you say is true. I'm considerably surprised.
So, then, why do I get:
8 //DDFOUR DD DISP=(,PASS),DSN=&&&&FOUR,UNIT=SYSALLDA,SPACE=(1,0)
STMT NO. MESSAGE
8 IEFC627I INCORRECT USE OF AMPERSAND IN THE DSN FIELD
By JCL rules, two ampersands represent one ampersand, so four ampersands
represent two ampersands, and "&&FOUR" is a valid temp DSN.
ObEmerson?
I hate JCL!
> But you are a strong supporter of z/OS in general, I believe.
>
Every other Friday.
-- gil
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