*PROCESS statement

Process (*PROCESS) statements specify assembler options in an assembler source program. You can include them in the primary input data set or provide them from a SOURCE user exit.

To ensure that certain assembler options cannot be changed for a given source file, put the OVERRIDE keyword as the first and only keyword on the process statement, followed by a list of options. This means that default and invocation options cannot override the specified options.

You can specify up to 10 process statements in each source program. Except for the ICTL instruction, process statements must be the first statements in your source program. If you include process statements anywhere else in your source program the assembler treats them as comments.

A process statement has a special coding format, unlike any other assembler instruction, although it is affected by the column settings of the ICTL instruction. You must code the characters *PROCESS starting in the begin column of the source statement, followed by one or more spaces. You can code as many assembler options that can fit in the remaining columns up to, and including the end column of the source statement. Options scanning on a *PROCESS record ends at the first space not enclosed in apostrophes.

You cannot continue a process statement on to the next source record.


               .-,----------------.                   
               V                  |                   
>>-*PROCESS--+---assembler option-+---------------+------------><
             |            .-,----------------.    |   
             |            V                  |    |   
             '-OVERRIDE(----assembler option-+--)-'

assembler_option: Is any assembler option.

These options are not accepted from a process statement

  ADATA       LANGUAGE    SYSPARM
  ASA         LINECOUNT   TERM
  DECK        LIST        TRANSLATE
  EXIT        OBJECT      XOBJECT
  GOFF        SIZE

If the option is specified on a process override statement and differs from the option in effect at the time of processing the statement, the assembler issues a warning message.

When the assembler detects an error in a process statement, it produces an error message in the High Level Assembler Option Summary section of the assembler listing. If the installation default option PESTOP is set then the assembler stops after it finishes processing any remaining process statements.

The assembler lists the options from process statements in the High Level Assembler Option Summary section of the assembler listing. The process statements are also shown as comment lines in the Source and Object section of the assembler listing.