FWIW, I am guessing "255" was simply a brain-glitch for 100, and had no basis in any actual technology.
Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Frank Swarbrick Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 11:12 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Question for COBOL users So I figured I'd test this, rather than just guessing or trying to remember what is true. //CLGO JOB ,'COMPILE/LINK/GO',NOTIFY=&SYSUID // SET COBLIB=IGY.V5R2M0 // JCLLIB ORDER=(&COBLIB..SIGYPROC) //*----------------------------------------------------------* //CLGO EXEC IGYWCLG,GOPGM=TEST1, // LNGPRFX=&COBLIB, //***** PARM.COBOL='TEST', //***** PARM.LKED='LIST=NOIMP MAP XREF LET=0', //***** PARM.GO='THIS IS A TEST' // PARMDD.COBOL=PARMS, // PARMDD.LKED=PARMS, // PARMDD.GO=PARMS //COBOL.SYSIN DD * ID DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. 'TEST1'. PROCEDURE DIVISION. DISPLAY 'TEST1' STOP RUN. END PROGRAM 'TEST1'. //COBOL.PARMS DD * TEST RULES(ENDPERIOD,EVENPACK,LAXPERF,NOSLACKBYTES) ARITH(EXTEND) CODEPAGE(1047) DLL INITCHECK PGMNAME(LONGMIXED) NOADATA NOADV AFP(VOLATILE) ARCH(9) QUOTE AWO BLOCK0 BUFSIZE(30000) NOCICS NOCOMPILE(S) CURRENCY('Y') DATA(31) NODBCS NSYMBOL(DBCS) NODECK NODIAGTRUNC DISPSIGN(SEP) NODUMP NODYNAM NOEXIT NOEXPORTALL NOFASTSRT FLAG(W,W) NOFLAGSTD HGPR(PRESERVE) INTDATE(ANSI) /* //LKED.PARMS DD * LIST=NOIMP, MAP, XREF, LET=0, /* //GO.PARMS DD * THIS IS A TEST /* //GO.SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=* // Results: PP 5655-W32 IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS 5.2.0 Date 02/14/2018 Time 11:30:16 Page 1 Invocation parameters: TEST RULES(ENDPERIOD,EVENPACK,LAXPERF,NOSLACKBYTES) ARITH(EXTEND) CODEPAGE(1047) DLL INITCHECK PGMNAME(LONGMIXED) AFP(VOLATILE) ARCH(9) QUOTE AWO BLOCK0 BUFSIZE(30000) NOCICS NOCOMPILE(S) CURRENCY('Y') DATA(31) NODBCS NSYMBOL(DBCS) NODECK NODIAGTRUNC DISPSIGN(SEP) NODUMP NODYNAM NOEXIT NOEXPORTALL NOFASTSRT FLAG(W,W) NOFLAGSTD HGPR(PRESERVE) INTDATE(ANSI) So I would say that the assertion that there is some limit of 255 characters appears to not be true. The limit of 100 for PARM is still true, but using PARMDD seems to allow more than 255, and I'm guessing up to whatever the PARMDD limit is (32767?). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN