Special Character Strings
To maintain a special characters as part of a string, enclose the string within bracketing characters. The bracketing characters are:
- backslashes (\)
- single quotation marks (‘ ’)
- double quotation marks (“ ”).
Backslashes
Backslashes indicate a character string and are not maintained as part of the string at its final resolution. The following table indicates the platforms that accept backslashes:
Processes Submitted from | Backslashes valid? |
---|---|
HP NonStop | No |
OpenVMS | No |
z/OS | Yes |
i5/OS | Yes |
UNIX | No |
VM/ESA | Yes |
VSE/ESA | Yes |
Microsoft Windows | No |
Use backslashes to:
- Continue a string containing special characters across multiple lines.
- Ensure that quotation marks in the string are maintained.
Both backslashes must be on the same line. If a string containing special characters continues across multiple lines, each line containing a special character must be enclosed in backslashes and concatenated. For example, the following SYSOPTS parameter for Connect:Direct® for i5/OS is a quoted string and must be enclosed in backslashes when it continues across multiple lines:
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Resolves to:
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If the character string includes a backslash, precede it with an additional backslash. For example:
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Resolves to:
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Single and Double Quotation Marks
Use single and double quotation marks to embed special characters or blanks within a parameter or subparameter value. For example:
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Strings within apostrophes (single quotes) allow the parsing of parameters as entered. Strings within quotes (double quotes) allow the resolution of &values in a quoted string.
For Connect:Direct for i5/OS and OpenVMS: Enclose the entire SYSOPTS string in double quotation marks (“ ”).
For Connect:Direct for z/OS®: Enclose parameters in double quotation marks (“ ”).
For Connect:Direct for UNIX: Use double quotation marks, unless otherwise specified.
Special Character Parsing in the SUBMIT Command
Parsing of special bracketing and single and double quotes is performed differently in a SUBMIT command than in a SUBMIT statement within a Process.
For example, a SUBMIT command executed from DMBATCH, resolves:
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to:
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A SUBMIT statement within a Process resolves the same string to:
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This is important to remember when a SUBMIT is performed between different platforms and products, such as from Connect:Direct for UNIX to Connect:Direct for z/OS to IBM® Connect:Enterprise®.