Application Debugging Tools › LIST Statement

LIST Statement

The CA Ideal/PDL LIST statement writes data to the output file without a report definition. For debugging, LIST is useful for:

• Displaying informative messages or the contents of fields at selected points during program execution.
• You can insert LIST statements in your program during debugging, showing the contents of significant fields or indicating which procedures executed, and remove them after any errors are corrected. For example, you could list the records retrieved by FOR statements or list the current values of variables and issue a QUIT RUN.
• Listing errors in an <<ERROR>> Procedure.

This statement has the following format:

LIST {list-specification}
     {ERROR             }

LIST writes to the CA Ideal output file. In a batch z/OS environment, this is the file with the RUNLIST DD name. In batch VSE, it is SYSLIST. Online, it is an output with an output name identical to the main program. You can browse this output or print it later.

list‑specification

Specifies data to the list. For more information, see the Programming Reference Guide.

ERROR

Lists information about an error condition that occurs during a run. LIST ERROR is automatically used in the default error procedure. You can also use it in an application to handle its own error recovery. For more information, see the PDL <<ERROR>> procedure in the “Error Recovery Tools” chapter.

Example

The following example lists records retrieved each time through a FOR construct.

FOR THE FIRST 5 EMPLOYEE
   WHERE NUMBER GE RLSASK.NUMBER
  .
  .
  .
  :TEST RECORDS RETRIEVED
LIST 'EMP#= ',EMPLOYEE.NUMBER,SKIP,
	'EMP NAME= ',EMPLOYEE.NAME,SKIP
ENDFOR

For a detailed description of the LIST statement, see the Programming Reference Guide.