General coding rules
The general format for all ICETOOL operator statements is:
- OPERATOR operand ... operand
The following rules apply for operator statements:
- The operator and operands must be in uppercase EBCDIC.
- The operator must be specified first.
- One blank is required between the operator and the first operand.
- One blank is required between operands.
- Any number of blanks can be specified before or after the operator or any operand, but blanks cannot be specified anywhere else except within quoted character strings.
- Parentheses must be used where shown. Commas or semicolons must be used where commas are shown.
- Operands can be in any order.
- Columns 1-72 are scanned; columns 73-80 are ignored.
- Continuation can be indicated by a hyphen (-) after the
operator or after any operand. The next operand must then be specified
on the next line. For example:
SORT FROM(INDD) - USING(ABCD) - TO(OUTPUT1,OUTPUT2,OUTPUT3)
Any characters specified after the hyphen are ignored. Each operand must be completely specified on one line.
A statement with an asterisk (*) in column 1 is treated as a comment statement. It is printed with the other ICETOOL statements, but otherwise not processed. A statement with blanks in columns 1 through 72 is treated as a blank statement. It is ignored, because ICETOOL prints blank lines where appropriate.