NCL File Processing › Work with UDBs › Format SYSOUT Output

Format SYSOUT Output

When processing SYSOUT data sets in ANSI format the &FILE PUT/ADD statement supports specification of formatting options such as skipping to new pages, line spacing, bolding, and underscoring using the PRTCNTL operand. As such the print character is never formatted by the user as part of the output data. When processing with machine control characters, the user is responsible for formatting the output data with the appropriate control character as the first character of the output data.

When processing an ANSI format SYSOUT file (RECFM=A or PRTCNTL=A) additional sub-operands of PRTCNTL allow left or right justification or centering of the data. In such cases the logical width of the report is determined by the logical record length (LRECL) of the data set. This too can be specified on the ALLOC command using the LRECL operand. The width specified does not include the print control character which will be allowed for and added internally.

If the data set is the z/OS internal reader (INTRDR, which must be allocated dynamically), it can be treated as an unmapped format UDB, in which case written records are interpreted as JCL. In this way, jobs can be submitted for execution.

When submitting jobs in this way, the job number of the submitted JCL stream can be obtained by issuing &FILE GET ID=name END. The job number is returned in the variable &ZJOBNUM.