The sequence of sections or named common areas in an output module can be specified by using the ORDER control statement.
Normally, the order that sections are received during input processing are preserved in the resulting module. Common areas are placed at the end. You can change the section order by coding one or more ORDER control statements.
Individual sections or named common areas are arranged in the output module according to the sequence in which they appear on the ORDER control statement. Multiple ORDER control statements can be used in a job step. The sequence of the ORDER statements determines the sequence of the sections or named common areas in the load module or program object.
Any sections or named common areas that are not specified on ORDER statements appear last in the output load module in their original sequence. If a section or named common area is changed by a CHANGE or REPLACE control statement, the new name must be used on the ORDER statement.
In the following example, ORDER statements are used to specify the sequence of five of the six sections in an output module. A REPLACE statement is used to replace the old section, SESECTA, with the new section, CSECTA, from the data set &&OBJECT, which was passed from a previous step. Assume that the sections to be ordered are found in library member MAINROOT shown in Figure 1.
In the load module MAINROOT, the sections MAINEP, SEGMT1, SEG2, CSECTA, and CSECTB are rearranged in the output load module according to the sequence specified in the ORDER statements. A REPLACE statement is used to replace section SESECTA with section CSECTA from data set &&OBJECT, which was passed from a previous step. The ORDER statement refers to the new section CSECTA. Section LASTEP appears after the other sections in the output module, because it was not included in the ORDER statement operands. The order control statement cannot be used to order parts.
Note that empty space is inserted in the module before CSECTB. This is done to ensure page alignment for CSECTB as specified by the "(P)" operand on the ORDER control statement (this is discussed in Aligning sections or named common areas on page boundaries).
See ORDER statement for specific information on using the ORDER statement.