Creating a positional parameter

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When editing and creating assembler and macro instruction definitions, you can add positional parameters.

Procedure

To create a new positional parameter, complete the following steps:

  1. Do one of the following actions:
    • In the HLASM tab of the Editor Options preference page, type the name of your user macro file in the User Macro File field.
    • In the HLASM Parser preference page, type the name of your user macro file in the User Macro File field.
  2. Click on the Manage button next to the User Macro File field.
    The Manage Macro Files dialog appears and, if specified, it will load the macro file from the User Macro File field.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • Select the Assembler Instruction tab.
    • Select the Macro Instruction tab.
  4. Do one of the following:
    • Click on the New button, specify the instruction name, and click on the Next button to go to the Parameters page
    • Click on the Edit button to edit an existing instruction.
    • Click on the Copy button to copy an existing instruction.
  5. Click on the New button to create a new parameter.
    The Define Parameter dialog appears.
  6. Specify the parameter name in the Name field. For positional parameters, the parameter name indicated to the HLASM parser dictates how the parameter should be validated.
    For example, if you wanted to only allow the value of YES and NO, you would specify the name as:
    YES|NO
    If you only wanted the value of TAPE, you would specify the name as:
    TAPE
    If you wanted to allow any value for the parameter, you would specify the name all in lower case:
    param
  7. Optional. Specify a description for the parameter. The parameter description appears during a content assist to provide you with additional information.
  8. Specify Positional as the parameter type.
  9. Specify whether or not this parameter is required.
  10. Specify whether or not this parameter is a bracket list.
  11. Specify the number of times that the parameter is allowed to be specified.
  12. Specify whether or not only a null value is allowed for this parameter.
    Note: If you select this option, the name of the parameter is ignored during validation of this parameter during syntax checking.
  13. Click on the Ok button.
    The parameter has now been added to the parameter table.
  14. Click Ok in the Define Assembler Instruction or Define Macro Instruction dialog.
    The instruction is updated in the instruction list.
  15. Click OK in the Manage Macro Files dialog.