Pseudo-JCL syntax

The build scripts for z/OS® contain pseudo-JCL.

Pseudo-JCL used by the z/OS® build server is similar to standard JCL in appearance, with some extensions and restrictions. In this topic, a line of script (a line of pseudo-JCL) is referred to as a card.

These are the major differences between the pseudo-JCL that is used in z/OS® build scripts and the JCL that is used to submit an z/OS® job:

• Pseudo-JCL has no job card.
• All cards must start with two forward slashes (//), except for in-stream data.
• You can map a data set to input files that are sent from a build client or to files that are to be returned to a build client as output files. (The keyword CCUEXT is an extension for DD statements that supports this mapping.)
• You can use the ENQ extension on a DD card to enqueue on the name of the data set allocated by the DD card.
• You can supply default values for substitution variables that are used within the build script. (The VARS statement supports this.) Thus you can write a generic script and modify it for a particular build by setting the substitution variables.
• You have more flexibility in specifying conditions for running a job. For example, the method of specifying multiple conditions on which a step is to be run is different from that of actual JCL.
• The build script contains one or more job steps. The execution of a job step can be dependent on the result of a prior step, using the COND parameter as in standard JCL with one difference: In pseudo-JCL, if you want to specify conditions on more than one step of the job, you specify a COND= keyword for each condition.