If Not
Question:
If I want to route the SYSOUT to spool then I need to give //SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
The blue one denotes the DD name and what does this yellow one denotes.?
Because if I want to route SORTOUT to spool instead of a PS then we give:
//SORTOUT DD SYSOUT=*
Why we don’t write like this:
//SORTOUT DD SORTOUT=*
Answer
syntax of a jcl statement is
//ident operation operands
(Above is the generic syntax of a JCL statement. Identifier may be present or absent. In some JCL statements like JOB statement, identifier is mandatory. But not necessary. For example in a concatenated file scenario, first dd name(identifier is mandatory), but remaining jcl statements that show concatenated file names, do not have identifier. Similarly, IF, SET, EXEC statements may have an identifier or may not have. Both ways it is fine.)
Example
//JOBLIB DD DSN=TEST.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR
// DD DSN=PROD.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR
In above, there are 2 JCL statements
//JOBLIB DD DSN=TEST.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR
And
// DD DSN=PROD.LOADLIB,DISP=SHR
The first JCL statement has JOBLIB as identifier, DD as operation, and remaining part is full of operands. ‘DD’ refers to data definition
As you see, the second JCL statement does NOT have identifier.
In
//SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
Both SYSOUTs are system-defined keywords. They have meanings that were created by mainframe creators.
The first one tells JCL as to which file(actually dd name) to route, and the second SYSOUT tells as to where to route the contents of it. (‘SYSOUT’ means SYSTEM OUTPUT) …
First SYSOUT ——- which dd name
Second SYSOUT —where to route, which physical device to route to
THE SECOND SYSOUT
The second one can be coded against any dd name
Like
//SORTOUT DD SYSOUT=M
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//XYZ DD SYSOUT=P
//FILE DD DSN=A.B.C,DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE),DCB=(…),SPACE=(….)
As you know, physical filename has a connection to logical filename via ddname.
In above 4 examples,
I want to route the ddnames
- SORTOUT to a physical device that is identified by SYSOUT=M
- SYSPRINT to a physical device that is identified by SYSOUT=*
- XYZ to a physical device that is identified by SYSOUT=P
- FILE to a physical device that is identified by a physical file A.B.C.
THE FIRST SYSOUT
The first SYSOUT was created by creators of mainframe to send, by default, all DISPLAY statements to a ddname called SYSOUT……
We can have
//SYSOUT DD DSN=A.B.C,DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE),DCB=(…),SPACE=(….)
In this case it means we want to route all DISPLAY statements to a device that is identified by a physical file A.B.C. And this routing is done via SYSOUT.
