IBM i General Design Standards › Design Standards for Commands › Design Standards › Order of Command Parameters

Order of Command Parameters

Use existing OS/400 syntax order whenever possible. For example, — LIB/FILE MBR

JOBNBR/USER/JOB

Place the parameters that are needed to identify the object or entity operated on by the command before any other parameters. For example, - EDTSRC FILE(X) OPTION(3).

Place the parameters that are most likely to be changed before the parameters that are unlikely to be changed; optimize for frequency of use. On iSeries, you should use the PMTCTL(*PMTCTL) keyword to hide ancillary parameters from the initial prompt displays—such additional parameters will automatically appear after the main parameters, if displayed by pressing F10. For example:

CRTPF FILE(QGPL/X) ........... AUT(*USE)

Place any required, for example, mandatory (MIN(0)) parameters, before any non-required parameters. Do not use the reordering facility of the command definition language to place required parameters after non-required parameters.

If either TEXT or OUTPUT parameters are present, they should normally be placed after all other parameters.