Usage of processor directive and first language element

Sakthidevi · New User Joined: 15 Nov 2019 Posts: 7 Location: India

Hi ,

Is below declaration can be used as the first statement in PL/I program?

(SUBSCRIPTRANGE,SIZE,STRINGSIZE,STRINGRANGE):
*PROCESS LANGLVL(SPROG);
XXBMIB06:PROC OPTIONS(MAIN REENTRANT) REORDER;

IBM zOS manual says about the process directive:
The % or * must be the first data byte of a source record. Any number of %PROCESS and *PROCESS directives can be specified, but they must all appear before the first language element appears.
Or in other words, the behaviour of this program is undefined if the condition prefix are before the process directive.

Can someone help me with the correct way of coding these statements? Will compiler accept this code?

Nic Clouston · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:38 pm

Phrzby Phil · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:28 pm

Sakthidevi - Nic is so right.

I see you are a very new user, and I don't know how long you have been a programmer, but if you want to be the "go to" (lol) person during your career, then you want to learn first hand how things work.

I suggest you create a directory of test programs in whatever languages, including JCL, you work with, and then test various features separately when you have questions.

If you "learn" something because someone tells you, you'll soon forget it. It may not even be correct!

If you learn from your experience, you'll become the expert.

Good luck.

Sakthidevi · New User Joined: 15 Nov 2019 Posts: 7 Location: India

Thanks Nic and Phil. I am working on a product development start up. We don't have a mainframe compiler yet and it would take sometime for the setup process. I came across this code as part of our development and just curious to know if it would work?

Thanks much if you could help me on this!

Nic Clouston · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:20 pm

My take on this (I do not have access to a mainframe compiler) is that hte first line - even though it is a label specification - is in error. But I would get back to the person who wrote it and ask them for the manual reference.