Free-Form Control Statement

A free-form control statement begins with CTL-OPT followed by zero or more keywords, followed by a semicolon.

Rules for control statements

You can specify zero or more control statements in your source file.

If a control-specification keyword cannot be repeated, it cannot appear more than once in any control statement.

You can mix free-form and fixed-form control statements. Each contiguous group of fixed-form specifications constitutes a single control statement.

When the compilation of a program contains any free-form control statements, the presence of the ACTGRP, BNDDIR, or STGMDL keyword will cause the DFTACTGRP keyword to default to *NO.

The only directives that are allowed within a free-form control statement are /IF, /ELSEIF, /ELSE, and /ENDIF. 

   CTL-OPT
       /IF DEFINED(*CRTBNDRPG)
               ACTGRP(*CALLER)
       /ENDIF
       OPTION(*SRCSTMT);

Examples of control statements

  • Two free-form control statements, each having several keywords 
    
   ctl-opt datfmt(*iso) timfmt(*iso)
           alwnull(*usrctl);

   ctl-opt option(*srcstmt)ccsid(*char:*jobrun);
  • One control statement with no keywords. The only effect of this statement is to prevent the RPG compiler from searching for a control specification data area. 
    
   ctl-opt;
  • A mixture of free-form and fixed-form control statements.
    1. A fixed-form statement consisting of three specifications
    2. A free-form statement beginning with CTL-OPT and ending with a semicolon
    3. A fixed-form statement consisting of one specification 
    
 H OPTION(*SRCSTMT :              1 
 H        *NODEBUGIO)             1 
 H ACTGRP(*NEW)                   1 
   CTL-OPT ALWNULL(*USRCTL)       2 
           CCSID(*UCS2            2 
                      :1200)      2 
           CCSID(*CHAR:*JOBRUN);  2 
 H DATFMT(*YMD) TIMFMT(*USA)      3