Symbols

Table 1 summarizes the types of binder symbols you can define, their length, and applicable usage notes.

Table 1. Rules for binder symbols
Symbol type Maximum Length (in bytes) Additional information
External symbol in PDS 8 Prelinker can be used to create truncated names
External symbol in PO1 64 Longer names cause automatic promotion to a higher level unless restricted by the COMPAT option
External symbol in PO2 and PO3 1024 Longer names cause automatic promotion to PO4 unless restricted by the COMPAT option
External symbol in PO4+ 32767  
Section name   Same as the other external symbols defined above
Class name 16 User-defined names should not exceed 14 bytes, and must not begin with B_ or C_
Member name 8 Should be upper case alphanumeric. Does not apply to UNIX files Binder allows 1024 for PDSE but will generate an 8 byte member name for system use if user-defined name exceeds 8 characters.
UNIX program name 255 Primary or alternate names. Includes file extension, if any, but not path
Alias name in PDS 8 Should be upper case alphanumeric.
Alias name in PDSE 1024 64 in PO1
DDname 8 Upper case alphanumeric.
Data set name 44 Upper case alphanumeric plus periods.
Path name 1023 Must begin with / (for absolute path) or ./ (for relative path)
Note:
  1. Names must be composed of charactars with EBCDIC representations from X'41' through X'FE' except that Shift-in and Shift-out (X'0E' and X'0F') may be used to signal DBCS character ranges. This character set restriction means that blanks may not be used within names, but any punctuation or national use characters may be except for those noted above as being alphanumeric.
  2. The binder treats upper and lower case letters as distinct with three exceptions:
    1. Keywords in binder options, and binder commands, are converted to upper case.
    2. If the CASE=MIXED option is not specified, lower case letters in control statement operand values and option values are converted to upper case unless they are within single quotation marks. Since options are processed in order of appearance, option data appearing prior to a CASE=MIXED specification will be folded to uppercase.
    3. If the UPCASE option is specified, certain symbols left unresolved at the end of a bind are converted to uppercase for a final resolution attempt.
Parent topic: Combining modules