You must use a specific format for architecture members. Architecture definition data sets must be fixed block (FB) with a length of 80 bytes or characters. Only one statement can appear in each 80-byte record. A record ranges from columns 1 through 72, and the records cannot be continued. SCLM ignores information that appears after column 72.

Write the statements in either upper- or lowercase. You can write all statements, except for CMD, PARM, and PARMx statements, in a free format as long as the items within the statements are in the correct order. The number of blank spaces between each item is not significant (except in the CMD statement).

The order of statements is generally not significant. For example, you can place OBJ statements before or after SINC statements. The only statements for which the order is significant are those keywords that cause data to be concatenated into the input stream (INCL, INCLD, CMD and LINK for LEC architecture members; SINC and CMD for CC and generic architecture members); or into the translator options (PARM and PARMx).

Member and type names must follow MVS™ naming conventions. SCLM does not check parameters and control statements for validity. They can continue up to and including column 72.

All members explicitly referenced by an architecture statement MUST exist in the type specified in the architecture statement. However, SCLM uses extended types and include sets to resolve the parsed dependencies of members referenced by a SINC statement if necessary.