JCL Questions and answers

1. What are three major types of JCl statements? What are their funtions?

JOB, EXEC, DD.
JOB - indicates start of jobstream to the operating system and through parms coded on it, certain details about the job (time, region, message level, job accounting data).

EXEC - indicates the start of execution of a particular job step, be that step a program or a proc.

DD - is a data definition, which is used to describe the attributes of a data set (name, unit, type, space, disposition).


2. How would you limit the time allotted for a job to forty-five seconds?

With a TIME parm
on the JOB statement in the form: TIME=(,45).
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3. What is the purpose of the DISP parameter?

Indicates the disposition of a data set (OLD, NEW, PASS, KEEP, etc,).
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4. What does SYSIN * indicate?

Instream data follows this card and is terminated when followed by a card containing // or /* in columns 1 and 2.
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5. The first two characters of any JCL statement must be what?

// or /*
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6. What's wrong with this statement? // EXEC PROG=PAYROLL?

PROG should be PGM.
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7. The EXEC statement indicates the beginning of what?

the beginning of execution of a job step in a job stream.
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8. What characters indicate the JCL card is a comment card?

//* in columns 1 - 3.
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9. How do you continue a JCL card?

A comma should follow the last entry on the original card. The continuation card must have ?? in columns 1 and 2, followed by a least one blank, and the rest of the parms must start in or before column 16.
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10. What DD statement parms are required to access a catalogued data set?

DSN and DISP.
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11. When would you use DISP=SHR instead of DISP=OLD?

You would use DISP=SHR to allow others to read (share) the datasets in a job. You would use DISP=OLD to lock others out (especially when you're updating the data set).
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12. How do you reference the most current generation of a GDG (generation data group)?

by placing a +0 in parenthesis immediately after a dataset name. As in DSN=GDG.NAME(+0)
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13. What is the difference between JOBLIB and STEPLIB?

JOBLIB allocates the libraries to all the steps for the entire life of the job. STEPLIB allocates the libraries for only that step where the STEPLIB is coded. STEPLIB takes precedence over JOBLIB.
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14. Where in the jobstream is the JOBLIB statement placed?

After the JOB statement and before the EXEC or PROC statement.
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15. How do you concatenate data sets?

First card has //DDNAME DD DSN=data.set.name1. Other cards omit DDNAME as in:
// DSN=data.set.name2, // DSN=data.set.name3, etc.
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16. What are COND parms used for?

To control the flow of jobstream execution to bypass or execute certain job steps based on the return codes from previous steps.
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17. What will make this step run if COND parm is COND=(0,NE)?

Run if return codes from any previous step(s) were equal to zero. Skip this step if the return code from any previous steps are not equal to zero (0,NE).
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18. What does COND=EVEN mean? COND=ONLY?

COND=ONLY means the step will be run only if the job has failed. COND=EVEN means the step will run even if a previous step has failed.
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19. What does the RLSE parm on space allocation mean?

Releases any unused space back to system.
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20. How would you override a DD statement called BKUP in step STEP10 in a proc?

//STEP10.BKUP DD .................
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