Specifying a syscall command

You must specify the syscall command parameters in the order indicated in the syscall command description.

syscall command name

The syscall command name is not case-sensitive: you can specify it as uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case.

Parameters

You can specify several types of parameters, but most fall into the following categories:

pathname

The path name is case sensitive, and it is specified as a string. The syscall commands can take a relative or absolute path name as a parameter. The search for a relative path name begins in your working directory:

If you are running a REXX program from a z/OS shell, your working directory is inherited from your z/OS shell session.
If you are running a REXX program in TSO/E, your working directory is typically your home directory.

Portable path names can use only the characters in the POSIX portable filename character set:

Uppercase or lowercase A to Z
Numbers 0 to 9
Period (.)
Underscore (_)
Hyphen (-)

Do not include any nulls in a path name.

mode

The mode is a three- or four-digit number that corresponds to the access permission bits. Each digit must be in the range 0–7, and at least three digits must be specified. See Setting permissions for files and directories for more information about permissions.

stem

The name of a stem variable. A stem can be used for input, output, or both. A stem is indicated by a . (period) at the end of the variable name.

The variable name for the first value consists of the name of the stem variable with a 1 appended to it. The number is incremented for each value. For example, vara.1, vara.2, and vara.3.
The variable name that contains the number of variables returned (excluding 0) consists of the name of the stem variable with a 0 appended to it. For example, vara.0

If you omit the period from the end of the variable name, a numeric suffix is appended to the name (for example, foo would become foo0, foo1, and so on).

The name of a stem variable is not case-sensitive.

variable

The name of a REXX variable. The name is not case-sensitive.