Continuing JCL statements that contain symbols

The system evaluates continuations of JCL statements that contain symbols as follows:

The system substitutes all symbols on an 80-character record.
The system determines if the record continues to another record. If symbolic substitution produces a null record (a line that is blank except for slashes in columns 1 and 2) as the continuation record, the substitution is not valid.

For example, consider the following JCL:

   //SET1   SET  VAL1='ABC,',VAL2=DEF,NULLSYM=''
   //S1     EXEC PGM=IEFBR14,PARM=&VAL1
   //         TIME=30
   //S2     EXEC PGM=IEFBR14,PARM=&VAL2
   //         TIME=30
   //S3     EXEC PGM=IEFBR14,PARM=&VAL1
   //         &NULLSYM

The JCL records that define step S1 form a valid continuation; the JCL symbol VAL1 introduces a comma, and the continuation is correctly coded.

Steps S2 and S3 are not valid. In step S2, the first record does not end in a comma after substitution of VAL2. In step S3, the record containing NULLSYM evaluates to a null record after symbolic substitution.

It may be that the number and length of symbols form a parameter that does not fit within the limits imposed by an 80-character record. (In reality the limit is 68 characters, because columns 1, 2, and 3 must contain respectively a slash, slash, and blank, and column 72 must be blank.) Two techniques for handling this situation are: (1) defining shorter symbols to substitute for the longer ones, or (2) dividing the series of symbols so as to form two parameters, which would allow you to place a comma after the first and move the second to a continuation record.