Guys, the code receives a text string which may contain one or more symbols, denoted by prefix "&" and optional suffix ".", as per my reading of how Z/OS handles symbol substitution.
Say we have these symbols defined in IEASYM00:- &A1. = '01' &B1. = 'TEST &TEST01 = 'FOOBAR' text string contains "&A1&B1" After substitution the text string sill contain "FOOBAR" The MVSVAR external function provides for this case, so it will substitute for any symbols in the text string, thus building a new SYMBOL name, repeating until all symbols are resolved, if possible. As I said, I was surprised that MVSVAR could take any text string, replacing any valid symbol names, returning the resulting text as a new SYMBOL NAME without error. Thank you for the comments. Regards Bruce ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
