Following an I/O operation with a DCB, the control program makes certain status information available to the problem program. This information is a 2-byte exception code or an area of standard status indicators, or both.

Exception codes are provided in the ISAM data control block (DCB) or in the BDAM data event control block (DECB). The DECB is described below, and the exception code is within the block. If you code a DCBD macro, you can address the exception code in a data control block as two 1-byte fields, DCBEXCD1 and DCBEXCD2.

Status indicators are available only to the error analysis routine designated by the SYNAD entry in the data control block (DCB) or data control block extension (DCBE). A pointer to the status indicators is provided either in the DECB (for BSAM, BPAM, and BDAM) or in register 0 (for QISAM and QSAM). For more information on exception codes and status indicators, see z/OS DFSMS Using Data Sets.