Creating and supplying a procedure

Your procedure, containing DFSORT or REXX statements or a combination of all of these, can be supplied as:

  • A temporary procedure, created as you process a relevant File Manager panel, or invoke a relevant File Manager function from a REXX program;
  • A saved procedure, nominated as you process a relevant File Manager panel or invoke a relevant File Manager function in batch or from a REXX program; or
  • An inline procedure, nested in a batch job stream, that invokes a relevant File Manager function.

Saved procedures must reside in a member of a fixed or variable format PDS. The record length of the data set is unrestricted, but must be at least large enough for complete tokens to be entered, with consideration given to the statement continuation requirements of DFSORT (as processed by File Manager, see below) and REXX. A record length of 80 meets these requirements comfortably. With this length, procedure statements can be copied into a temporary Edit session without truncation or used as an inline procedure in a JCL Edit session.

Whether a procedure is entered at the terminal, saved in a PDS, or supplied as an inline procedure in JCL, it must follow the rules described below for File Manager procedures, as well as the specific rules for DFSORT and REXX statements defined by the DFSORT and REXX products.