Free-form Operations
See Free-Form Statements for information on the columns available for free-form statements.
Enter an operation that is supported in free-form syntax. Code an operation code (EVAL and CALLP are optional) followed by the operands or expressions. The operation may optionally span multiple lines. No new continuation characters are required; each statement ends with a semicolon (;). However, existing continuation rules still apply.
See Continuation Rules for more information on coding continuation lines.
The operation codes that can use free-form syntax are listed
below. For operations that cannot use free-form syntax, check the detailed
description in Operation Codes to see if there is a suggested replacement.
- ACQ (Acquire)
- BEGSR (Beginning of Subroutine)
- CALLP (Call a Prototyped Procedure or Program)
- CHAIN (Random Retrieval from a File)
- CLEAR (Clear)
- CLOSE (Close Files)
- COMMIT (Commit)
- DATA-GEN (Generate a Document from a Variable)
- DATA-INTO (Parse a Document into a Variable)
- DEALLOC (Free Storage)
- DELETE (Delete Record)
- DOU (Do Until)
- DOW (Do While)
- DSPLY (Display Message)
- DUMP (Program Dump)
- ELSE (Else)
- ELSEIF (Else If)
- ENDyy (End a Structured Group)
- ENDSR (End of Subroutine)
- EVAL (Evaluate expression)
- EVAL-CORR (Assign corresponding subfields)
- EVALR (Evaluate expression, right adjust)
- EXCEPT (Calculation Time Output)
- EXFMT (Write/Then Read Format)
- EXSR (Invoke Subroutine)
- FEOD (Force End of Data)
- FOR (For)
- FOR-EACH (For Each)
- FORCE (Force a Certain File to Be Read Next Cycle)
- IF (If)
- IN (Retrieve a Data Area)
- ITER (Iterate)
- LEAVE (Leave a Do/For Group)
- LEAVESR (Leave a Subroutine)
- MONITOR (Begin a Monitor Group)
- NEXT (Next)
- ON-ERROR (On Error)
- ON-EXCP (On Exception)
- ON-EXIT (On Exit)
- OPEN (Open File for Processing)
- OTHER (Otherwise Select)
- OUT (Write a Data Area)
- POST (Post)
- READ (Read a Record)
- READC (Read Next Changed Record)
- READE (Read Equal Key)
- READP (Read Prior Record)
- READPE (Read Prior Equal)
- REL (Release)
- RESET (Reset)
- RETURN (Return to Caller)
- ROLBK (Roll Back)
- SELECT (Begin a Select Group)
- SETGT (Set Greater Than)
- SETLL (Set Lower Limit)
- SND-MSG (Send a Message to the Joblog)
- SORTA (Sort an Array)
- TEST (Test Date/Time/Timestamp)
- UNLOCK (Unlock a Data Area or Release a Record)
- UPDATE (Modify Existing Record)
- WHEN (When True Then Select)
- WRITE (Create New Records)
- XML-INTO (Parse an XML Document into a Variable)
- XML-SAX (Parse an XML Document)