Specifying a file reference

A file reference can be a file constant, a file variable, or a function reference which returns a value with the FILE attribute. It can be used in the following ways:

• In a FILE or COPY option
• As an argument to be passed to a function or subroutine
• To qualify an input/output condition for ON, SIGNAL, and REVERT statements
• As the expression in a RETURN statement.

On-units can be established for a file constant through a file variable that represents its value (see ON-units for file variables). In the following example, the statements labelled L1 and L2 both specify null ON-units for the same file.

  dcl F file,
      G file variable;
      G=F;
  L1:  on endfile(G);
  L2:  on endfile(F);