You can define symbolic variables with meaningful names. Meaningful
variable names, like PAY_RAISE, describe the contents of the variable
and make CLISTs easy to read and maintain. Note that an ampersand
(&) is not part of a variable name; it tells the CLIST to use
the value of the variable. Follow these rules when naming a symbolic
variable:
- The first character must be one of the following: A-Z, (a-z),
_, #, $, @.
Note: The system recognizes the following hexadecimal
codes for these characters: _ (X'6D'), # (X'7B'),
$ (X'5B'), @ (X'7C'). In countries other than the
U.S., these characters on a keyboard might generate different hexadecimal
codes and cause an error. For example, in some countries the $ character
might generate a X'4A'.
- The remaining characters can be any of the above, and 0 through
9.
- The variable name can be up to 252 characters in length (not counting
the ampersand).
- Variable names must not match the character equivalents of CLIST
operators, such as "EQ" and "NE" (see Table 1 for a list).
- Special rules apply to the PROC statement. On PROC
statements:
- All variables must begin with A-Z, and be in uppercase only.
- Names of keyword variables cannot contain the underscore (_),
or be longer than 31 characters. For more information, see Using the PROC statement.
- If variables are used on ISPF panels, they cannot exceed eight
characters in length.
- Do not use the names of statements or their keywords as
variable names. This may cause unexpected results if used in a conditional
statement, as in the following sequence:
SET WHILE = &STR(ABC)
DO UNTIL &WHILE = &STR(ABC) WHILE (&COUNT<5)
SET &COUNT = &COUNT + 1
END
The results are also unpredictable if a keyword is
used within a string, as in the following: SET COUNT = 0
SET VAR = ABC
DO UNTIL &VAR = &SUBSTR(3:3,WHILE) WHILE &COUNT < 5
SET COUNT = &COUNT + 1
END