Argument names and values

The fourth and fifth fullwords in the parameter list are the addresses of the argument name list and argument value address list.

The arguments provide specific information about your request. An argument can consist of an argument name alone, or an argument name and a matching argument value. Some requests require only one or more argument names, and some require argument names and values. If argument values are required, they are always associated one-for-one with the argument names.

Arguments can be compared to operands of a TSO command, where the argument name corresponds to the parameter keyword, and the argument value corresponds to the parameter value. For example:

The parameter list contains two addresses for the arguments, one pointing to the argument name list and one pointing to the argument value address list.

The argument name list is an array of 8-byte character fields. Each field contains an argument name, is left justified. Blanks must appear to the right of the argument name if it is shorter than 8 characters. The list is terminated by an all-blank field.

The argument value address list contains a list of addresses that point to the argument values. For a character argument value, the length of the field should be the same as that shown in the argument table. But, when a character argument is used as a selection argument, only the characters up to the first blank or comparison operator are used. Date and time data types are processed in the same way as character argument values. A numeric argument value must always be a fullword.

The retrieval of a record from the application description database is an example of how arguments are used. Here, the arguments identify the particular record required. The argument names identify the names of fields in the record, and the argument values identify the values of those fields for the record you want to retrieve (for details, see Program interface arguments in TSO command notation).

Sometimes, there might be a reason to specify the same argument more than once. For example, to get a list of active operations, you can specify argument name STATUS and C ≠ for the value, plus argument name STATUS and D ≠ for the value. You can specify an argument multiple times; up to 32 arguments can be defined in the argument name list.