How to pass more than one parameters from JCL to program?

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

I' trying to pass two parameters from JCL to program using below step:

Nic Clouston · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:00 pm

You pass everything as one parameter and store in a structure.

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

Thanks for your reply.
Passing and receiving is good for only one parameter.
But I really need to pass 2 parameters...

How can I receive it from my program?

expat · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:52 pm

I think that Nic is intimating that you pass ONE string to the program, and within the program you delimit the different sections of the string passed to get the required parameters.

Stefan · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:59 pm

Pandora-Box · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 2:00 pm

Show yourself what you passed in Parm and also display yourself what you received in program when you have used Nic's advice

Nic Clouston · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 2:34 pm

I can see why you are having this problem - I have just had a look through the index and contents of both the language reference and the programming guide and I can find no obvious reference to receiving a parameter from JCL. Passing parameters from module to module, yes; from JCL to program, no. Maybe someone else can post details of which section(s) of those two manuals to look at - or an alternative source (within the IBM manuals).

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

Nic Clouston · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 2:49 pm

Because JCL is not COBOL - it is a different language and a different type of language too with its own rules jsust as COBOL has its own rules. And I think you have a typo - JCL passes ONE parameter, of up to 100 bytes.

Bill Woodger · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:30 pm

dejunzhu,

There is a, single, PARM value in the JCL.

Whether the content of that is understood as separate pieces of information in the program that is the target of the EXEC is entirely up to that program, the JCL processor does not care (beyond how it is specified to operate in the JCL) anything about it. To the JCL it is one, and only one parameter, where there are multiple commas, some equals signs, or the word Banana repeated several times, it is all the same to the JCL.

One PARM value from the JCL. You define one parameter in your COBOL program. Then, in the COBOL program, you take the content of that, and interpret it however you like.

If you have PARM='A,B' in the JCL, then you will get two-byte binary with a value of three, followed by A,B in your program. It is entirely up to your program to "realise" that this, to your program, is "two parameters".

Nic,

I've never seen any formal documentation of the process from IBM. I'd guess it must be in some Assembler manual. For COBOL, it is knowledge which just "exists" and gets passed on.... "Just copy program XYZ and make sure you know what it is doing..."

Having said that, mostly it is done badly, so perhaps someone should fill in a suggestion slip and send it to the COBOL people...

I think that the link Stefan provided already should be clear enough :-)

Akatsukami · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:55 pm

prino · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:08 pm

expat · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:10 pm

That's a comma type of error though

OK OK I'll get my coat

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

okay, I have got the desired solution.
No matter how many parameters delimited by comma, just coding one 01-level variable in LINKAGE SECTION as the receiving area of the program will do.

Pandora-Box · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:22 pm

Hope you are aware of the limitations as well

Garry Carroll · Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:22 pm

Akatsukami · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:46 am

Robert Sample · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:04 am

The Programming Guide adds

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

Another new problem occurred, if I pass parameters via below PARMS ,

gcicchet · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:38 pm

Hi,

You cannot use symbolic parameters in instream data

Gerry

dejunzhu · Active User Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 390 Location: China

Bill Woodger · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:59 pm

Well, goodness me, they have updated the manual. Robert's quote is from the Enterprise Cobol Version 5 Release 1 Programming Guide, which has been available for about three weeks.

Not only have they updated the manual, but they've included an example which is basically how I code it rather than using "reference-modification" :-)

There we go. And you don't have to wait for V5.1 to use it. It would work from OS/VS COBOL onwards, and it is not the COBOL that provides the limit, it is when OS appeared (and they decided to allow a PARM in the JCL). The ODO for a variable-length field worked in 1964 at least, the earliest I can track it down to through documentation...

Bill Woodger · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:15 pm

One way to do it is to not use the PARM directly. Have a new, not very big, program which takes the PARM and writes it to a file. Read that file in your DB2 program, instead of trying to use the PARM.

You could also look to "generate" the Control Cards to execute your program, allowing for the symbol-substitution to take place and then be included in the generated cards.

You may also want to investigate the Language Environment route, from the piece which Robert posted. I'm not sure what "TSO" is going to do with options it doesn't recognise.

It is not, at any current release of z/OS, going to work how you have coded it.

gcicchet · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:33 pm

Hi,

you can try this

Bill Woodger · Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:47 pm

And you can easily adapt Gerry's example to write the parameter to a file.

You can "maximise" the potential length of the parameter, but if you need more than 69/71 characters, you'll need to find out how to divide-and-continue the parameter.