KEY control statement

This statement specifies the physical record in a KSDS to be verified or changed.

The KEY control statement has two formats. When the key of a VSAM record can be specified in a single line, use this format:

KEY key

When the key of a VSAM record is too long to specify in one line, it can be specified using several lines as follows:

KEY continued-key,
continued-key,
 .
 .
continued-key
key
The fully qualified key of the VSAM record. It must be specified in a single line. It can be specified as any one of the following expressions:
  • A character string (for example, ABCD)
  • A character literal (for example, C'ABCD')
  • A hexadecimal expression that consists of an even number of digits (for example, X'C1C2C3C4'). A leading zero must be added to an odd number of digits (for example, X'0FFFFF').

When a key is specified as a character literal and the key contains one or more single quotes ('), the quotes must be specified as two consecutive single quotes (''). When a key is specified as a character string, a blank cannot appear within a key field. When the data set key has one or more blanks, use the character literal or the hexadecimal format.

continued-key
The portion of the long VSAM key. The fully qualified key of the VSAM record can be specified on several lines using continued-keys. Continued-keys can be specified as either of the following expressions or a combination of the expressions:
  • A character literal (for example, C'ABCD')
  • A hexadecimal expression that consists of an even number of digits (for example, X'C1C2C3C4'). A leading zero must be added to an odd number of digits (for example, X'0FFFFF').
A character string must not be used.

The continued-key in each line must end with a comma (,) except for the last line. A comment can follow any continued-key separated by at least one blank, even when the continued-key ends with a comma.

The total length of the VSAM key that you specify on the KEY control statement must be equal to the length of the key for the data set. Otherwise, a logical error occurs.