When creating and editing CLISTs, you might copy an existing CLIST data set into a new data set. If you do so under ISPF/PDF, be aware of the record formats of the data sets. Variable-blocked data sets might contain line numbers in columns 1-8 that do not normally appear when you edit the data sets. If you copy a variable-blocked data set into a fixed-blocked data set, the line numbers are copied as part of the data. This data must then be removed. To find out if a data set contains line numbers, use the ISPF EDIT command PROFILE.

If you copy a fixed-blocked data set with line numbers into a variable-blocked data set, the system copies sequence numbers from columns 73-80 into the variable-blocked data set. This data must also be removed. For information about how to remove the sequence numbers from a variable-blocked data set, see z/OS ISPF Edit and Edit Macros.