Passing values from JCL to Assembler program

alokagarwaljgd · New User Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 28

Can anyone please explain how we can pass and retrieve the parameter values from a JCL to an Assembler program with the help of an example?

Alok Agarwal

expat · Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 7:03 pm Post subject:

I can only assume that you have neither read the manual nor searched the forum.

A google search finds four or five examples on this forum.

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 9:38 pm Post subject:

Hello,

What have you tried? Where are you stuck?

alokagarwaljgd · New User Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 28

Hi Expat and Dick,

I am aware of the fact that we can pass values from JCL to the assembler program by using PARM parameter in JCL and can accept them in the program by R1 register. But, when I saw some of the code in my org. I was confused. As soon as, the program is starting, they are moving the values from R01 to some other register by using L e.g. L R10,0(R1)

In this case, what does R10 contains,
1) does it contain the actual parm values or
2) does it contain the address that points to the actual parm values?

I thought that it contained the actual parm values because LOAD instruction will copy the value in the memory pointed by second operand to the first operand register. In the above example, the displacement is 0 and hence its actual address = content of R1 + 0 = content of R1 = address of the location where parm is stored. Thus, the value at the actual address is taken and loaded into the register by the L instruction.

Please let me know if my understanding is correct or not.

Ronald Burr · Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 11:23 pm Post subject:

At entry, R1 points to a LIST of ADDRESSES, each of which points to one of the parms passed to the program. In the case of EXEC parms being passed from JCL, there is only ONE parm - hence R1 points to a LIST which contains only one address: the address of the Exec Parm.
Thus, the instruction

L R10,0(R1)

loads the FIRST ( 0 offset ) address contained in the list into R10. So, after the Load, R10 will contain the address of the FIRST parm ( which, if passed from JCL is also the ONLY parm ).

Bill O'Boyle

As Ron said, after the LOAD instruction, R10 will contain the address of the parm. Because there is only one parm, the high-order bit of this address will be on (X'80') to signify the end of parms.