NCP and VTAM® definition statements have the following format:
| Name | Definition statement | Operands |
|---|---|---|
| name | Definition Statement | Required and optional operands |
The name field identifies the definition statement or minor node. If you use the name field, it must contain 1–8 characters of the following types:
| First character | Alphabetical (A–Z); the national characters @, #, or $; for APPL or CDRSC definition statements, the wildcard character ?. |
| Second to eighth characters | Alphabetical (A–Z); numerical (0–9); the national characters @, #, or $; for APPL or CDRSC definition statements, the wildcard characters * or ?. |
You can code MVS™ system symbols in the name field of definition statements. See Using MVS system symbols in VTAM definition statements and macroinstructions for information about using MVS system symbols in VTAM macroinstructions.
If coded, the name field must begin in column 1 of the definition statement and must be followed by one or more blanks. Together, the name field and definition statement field must fit in columns 1–70 of a line. Although the name might be indicated as optional, you should code it because VTAM uses it in operator messages referring to the resource defined. Also, resources without names are not saved in checkpoint data sets. When a resource is "checkpointed", information about the resource is saved in a data set and later read by VTAM when it is restarted.
You can use network-qualified names to ensure that resources that are LU-LU session-capable within an SNA network interconnection (SNI) have unique names. Network-qualified names are in the form netid.resource_name, where netid identifies the name of the network in which the resource resides. Two resources residing in different networks can have the same resource name, but because their network-qualified names have unique network identifiers, no name conflict exists.
The definition statement field, which must be preceded and followed by one or more blanks, identifies the definition statement. All definition statements can be in mixed case, even though they will be translated and processed by VTAM in uppercase.
The operands field contains operands, which can be coded in any order and must be separated by commas. The operand field ends with one or more blanks placed after the last operand. In most definition statements, operands are used in the operand field. Operands are followed by an equal sign (=) and the operand value. The operand value can be a single value or a list of values. If it is a list of values, the values must be separated by commas and the list must be enclosed in parentheses. If the operand fields are to be continued, the continuation character must be placed in column 72. If the value is specified as name, it must follow the preceding rules for name.
|...+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7...
&USER1.&USER2.&USER3.&USER4.&USER5.&USER6.&USER7.&USER8. APPL X
AUTH=(ACQ,PASS),ENCR=REQDSee Using MVS system symbols in VTAM definition statements and macroinstructions for information about using MVS system symbols in VTAM definition statements.