Special rules for JCL EXEC statements

Binder options are specified in the PARM field of the EXEC statement and must adhere to the rules for JCL statements. Keep in mind that:

Commas cannot be used within the PARM value unless it is enclosed in parentheses or single quotation marks.
Blanks and equal signs cannot be used within the value unless they are within a string enclosed in quotation marks.
Nested parentheses are allowed only as complete subparameters separated by commas within a parenthesized value.

Because commas or blanks are required to specify more than one binder option, the PARM string must be enclosed in either single quotation marks or parentheses if multiple options are being passed to the binder.

Because parentheses or an equal sign must be adjacent to an option name to specify an option value, single quotation marks must be used if options with values are being passed to the binder.

One approach to these restrictions is to enclose the entire PARM= string in single quotation marks. If this is done, the following additional JCL rules must be honored:

Any single quotation marks within the string (such as the quotation marks typically needed for the PATH parameter) must be doubled.
If the string is continued beyond the initial JCL record, provide data through column 71 to ensure that there is not a single quotation mark in that column. Next, continue the string in column 16 of the next record (with // in columns 1 and 2 and blanks in column 3 through 15).

Another approach to these restrictions is to enclose the entire PARM= string in parentheses and separate the options by commas with no intervening blanks. Individual options requiring an equal sign or parentheses are then enclosed in single quotation marks, which the binder will remove. Using this approach, the additional JCL rules are:

If the string is continued beyond the initial JCL record, it can be broken after any comma at or before column 71 and continued in any column from 4 through 16 of the next record (with // in columns 1 and 2).
If the break must occur within a quoted string, the same rule listed above must be followed, data through column 71 with continuation in column 16.

Figure 1. Example of special rules for JCL EXEC statements

             16↓                              71↓
//BIND   EXEC PGM=IEWL,
//             PARM='linect=55,list(all),map,xref,options=optndd,wkspa
//             ce=(400,10000)'

Figure 2. Example of special rules for JCL EXEC statements

             16↓                              71↓
//BIND   EXEC PGM=IEWL,
//             PARM=('linect=55','list(all)',map,xref,
//         'options=optndd','wkspace=(400,10000)')