The discussion in the preceding paragraphs has covered passing control within one load module, and has been based on the assumption that the load module was brought into virtual storage because of the program name specified in the EXEC statement. The control program established only one task to be performed for the job step. When the logical end of the program is reached, control passes to the return address passed (in register 14) to the first control section in the control program. When the control program receives control at this point, it terminates the task it created for the job step, compares the return code in register 15 with any COND values specified on the JOB and EXEC statements, and determines whether or not subsequent job steps, if any are present, should be executed.
When your program returns to the control program, your program should use a return code between 0 and 4095 (X'0FFF'). A return code of more than 4095 might make return code testing, message processing, and report generation inaccurate.