General syntax rules for the creation of members

The following general syntax rules apply to the creation of most parmlib members. You can find the description of the exceptions to these rules under specific members. The general rules are:

• Logical record size is 80 bytes.
• Block size must be a multiple of 80.
• Any columns between 1 and 71 can contain data.
• Statements are entered in uppercase characters.
• Suffix member identifiers can be any combination of A-Z and 0-9, though some member identifiers may allow other characters.
• Columns 72 through 80 are ignored.
• For some parmlib members, continuation is indicated by a comma followed by one or more blanks after the last entry on a record.
• Leading blanks are suppressed. A record therefore need not start at a particular column.
• Suffix member identifiers (such as LNK=A2) can be any alphanumeric combination.
• Comments for some parmlib members are indicated by using /* and */ as the delimiters in columns 1-71, for example:

  /*comment*/

  /* and */ characters within a single-quoted string are usually not treated as comment delimiters.
  For nested comments, delimiters must be balanced. For example, you can nest comments as follows:

   /*comment1/*comment2*/*/

  Some parmlib members require other methods. Check specific parmlib members for information about specifying comments.