DEFINE

Purpose

Establishes an entry point for a subroutine and to define the subroutine processing. At runtime, a subroutine is executed when it is named in a CALL statement.

Syntax

                                                 ┌───────────────────────┐
►►─── DEFINE subroutine subroutine-name ─── . ───▼─ command statement. ──┴────►◄

Parameters

subroutine-name

Specifies the 1- to 8-character name of the subroutine being defined.

Subroutine-name must be unique within the process.

command-statement

Specifies the process commands that define the subroutine.

Command-statement can be any process command statement except DEFINE SUBROUTINE.

Usage

Considerations

Each command statement must be terminated with a period (.).
Any number of subroutine definitions can be coded at the end of a process.
A subroutine definition is terminated by the occurrence of another subroutine definition or by the end of the process code.
DEFINE is the only process command that can follow a subroutine definition.
Subroutine order and physical placement within the process code are important. The physical placement of multiple subroutines depends on the code within each subroutine. All called subroutines must be physically coded lower than the calling subroutine.
```
Example:
CALL SUBROUTINE-A.
....
CALL SUBROUTINE-B.
....
DEFINE SUBROUTINE-A.
  (within this code which is subroutine-d)
DEFINE SUBROUTINE-D.
  (within this code which is subroutine-b)
DEFINE SUBROUTINE-B.
```