Names (*NAME)

When you create basic names and basic names in quoted form, follow these rules.

*NAME (basic name in unquoted form)

Every basic name can begin with the characters A-Z, $, #, or @ and can be followed by up to nine characters. The remaining characters can include the same characters as the first but can also include numbers 0-9, underscores (_), and periods (.). Lowercase letters are changed to uppercase letters by the system. Basic names used in IBM-supplied commands can be no longer than 10 characters. However, in your own commands, you can define parameters of type *NAME (specified on the TYPE parameter of the PARM or ELEM statements) with up to 256 characters.

Examples of basic names are shown as follows:

A987@.442#    ONE_NAME    LIB_0690    $LIBX

Names can be entered in quoted or unquoted form. If you use the quoted form, the following rules and considerations also apply:

*NAME (basic name in quoted form)

Every quoted name must begin and end with a quotation mark ("). The middle characters of a quoted name can contain any character except , *, ?, ', ", hex 00 through 3F, or hex FF, and is delimited by a slash. Quoted names allow you to use graphic characters in the name. The quoted form of basic names used in IBM-supplied commands can be no longer than 8 characters (not including the quotation marks). In your own commands, you can define parameters of type *NAME in quoted form with up to 254 characters (not including the quotation marks).

Note: Only basic names can be used in quoted form.

Examples of quoted names are shown as follows:

"A"        "AA%abc"        "ABC%%abc"

When you use quoted names, you should be aware of certain restrictions:

Code points in a name might not be addressable from all keyboards.
Characters in a quoted name might not be valid in a high-level language.
The System/38 environment supports only simple (*SNAME) names. If other characters are used, the objects cannot be accessed as System/38 environment objects.
Names that are longer than eight characters cannot be accessed by the System/36 environment unless control language overrides are used.
A Structured Query Language (SQL) name that contains a period must be specified in an SQL statement in quotation marks.

If a name enclosed in quotation marks is a valid unquoted basic name, the quotation marks are removed. Thus, "ABC" is equivalent to ABC. Because the quotation marks are removed, they are not included in the length of the name. "ABCDEFGHIJ" is, therefore, a valid name on IBM* commands even though it is longer than 10 characters.