Control statement string sent to the EFS program

DFSORT scans for the requested control statement from SYSIN, SORTCNTL, DFSPARM, or the invoker's parameter list to create a contiguous control statement string; DFSORT will handle any necessary continuation requirements for control statements from SYSIN, SORTCNTL, or DFSPARM. DFSORT scans for the requested PARM option to create a contiguous PARM option string.

DFSORT places a copy of the requested control statement or PARM option string in a contiguous storage area for the EFS program. No labels are supplied with the control statement; the address of the string always points to the first byte of the appropriate operation definer or PARM option.

DFSORT will send the requested control statement(s) or PARM option(s) to the EFS program as found by DFSORT; DFSORT will provide limited syntax checking of control statements or PARM option(s) before sending them to the EFS program.

In addition to following the rules in General coding rules, you must observe the following rules for non-DFSORT control statements:

DFSORT will recognize a control statement with no operand(s) provided the operation definer (1) is supplied in SYSIN, SORTCNTL, or DFSPARM and (2) is the only operation definer contained on a line.
Operation definers supplied through SYSIN, SORTCNTL, DFSPARM, or the extended parameter list and requested by the EFS program will not be recognized if they are longer than eight bytes.

In addition to observing the rules in z/OS MVS JCL User's Guide and z/OS MVS JCL Reference you must observe the following rule for non-DFSORT PARM options:

PARM options requested by the EFS program will not be recognized if they are longer than eight bytes.

DFSORT will send the requested DFSORT or non-DFSORT control statements or PARM options that remain after DFSORT override rules have been applied.

If duplicate DFSORT or non-DFSORT control statements or PARM options are supplied through the same source (such as SYSIN), then DFSORT will send the first occurrence of the control statement. The second occurrence of the DFSORT or non-DFSORT control statement or PARM option will be ignored by DFSORT.

If duplicate DFSORT or non-DFSORT control statements are supplied through different sources (such as extended parameter list, SORTCNTL, and DFSPARM), then DFSORT will send the control statement remaining after different source override rules have been applied, except for the DFSORT OPTION and DEBUG control statements (see Special handling of OPTION and DEBUG control statements).

If mutually exclusive DFSORT control statements (such as SORT/MERGE) are supplied through the same source (such as SYSIN), then DFSORT will send the first occurrence of the control statement. The second occurrence of the DFSORT control statement will be ignored by DFSORT.

If mutually exclusive DFSORT control statements (such as SORT/MERGE) are supplied through different sources (such as extended parameter list, SORTCNTL, and DFSPARM), then DFSORT will send the control statement remaining after different source override rules have been applied. The DFSORT control statement not sent will be ignored by DFSORT.

Thus the EFS program will not be sent duplicate DFSORT or non-DFSORT control statements (except for the DFSORT OPTION and DEBUG control statements as explained in Special handling of OPTION and DEBUG control statements), or duplicate PARM options.

If the EFS program supplies non-DFSORT operands on the DFSORT OPTION control statement and the OPTION control statement is supplied in the extended parameter list, the EFS program must specify the non-DFSORT operands after all DFSORT operands.

DFSORT will free any storage it acquired for the control statement or PARM string.

Note: Blanks and quotes are very important to DFSORT in determining the control statement to send to an EFS program. Do not supply unpaired quotes in the INCLUDE/OMIT control statements, because DFSORT treats data within quotes as a constant, and treats blanks outside of quotes as the major delimiter.