Positional Operands

Positional operands are required and must immediately follow the command name in a certain order. If you enter positional operands incorrectly, you get an error message. For example, the RENAME command requires that the first operand be the old data set name and the second operand be the new data set name.

Example
Switching the operands in a RENAME command results in an error. If OLD.DATA exists and NEW.DATA does not exist, and you type the RENAME command as follows: `RENAME new.data old.data` You see the message: `DATA SET NEW.DATA NOT IN CATALOG OR AMOUNT OF DATASETS EXCEEDS WORKAREA FOR GENERIC RENAME READY`

To enter a positional operand that is a list of several names or values, enclose the list within parentheses and separate the operands by a comma or a space.

Example
To list the data set attributes of more than one data set, enter the LISTDS command with the positional operands, which are the data set names, enclosed in parentheses. `LISTDS (new.data test.data)`