Exceeding the control limit

The control limit, described on Control limit, limits the number of DD statements in a job step. Usually, the control limit is a concern only in an interactive environment. However, some utilities that can be used in a batch environment might require that you modify the control limit. Utilities such as IDCAMS expect a control limit that is larger than the number of DD statements in the job step. If the control limit is not larger, these utilities could receive an X'043C' error reason code from DYNALLOC (see Table 3). If a batch program requires a large number of allocations, use the DYNAMNBR parameter on the EXEC statement to increase the control limit. Refer to z/OS MVS JCL User's Guide to choose a value for the DYNAMNBR parameter.