EXEC Statement

Purpose

The EXEC statement identifies the beginning of a job step and specifies either a program to be executed or a cataloged/in-stream procedure to be used.

Syntax

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//stepname EXEC PGM=program-name[,parameter[,parameter]...]
//stepname EXEC PROC=procedure-name[,parameter[,parameter]...]
//stepname EXEC procedure-name[,parameter[,parameter]...]

Key Parameters

  • stepname - A 1-8 character name that identifies the job step. Must begin with an alphabetic (A-Z) or national (@, #, $) character.
  • PGM=program-name - The name of the program to be executed.
  • PROC=procedure-name or procedure-name - The name of a cataloged or in-stream procedure to be executed.

Common Parameters

  • PARM='parameter-string' - Passes parameters to the program being executed
  • COND=(code,comparison-operator) - Conditional execution based on return codes
  • TIME=minutes or TIME=(minutes,seconds) - Maximum execution time for this step
  • REGION=nnnK or REGION=nnnM - Memory allocation for this step
  • ADDRSPC=REAL/VIRT - Controls whether the step uses real or virtual storage
  • DPRTY=(dispatching-priority,time-slice-priority) - Dispatching priority for the step
  • PERFORM=n - Performance group for the step

Examples

Executing a Program

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//STEP01   EXEC PGM=IEFBR14
          
//STEP02   EXEC PGM=SORT,
//             PARM='FIELDS=COPY',
//             REGION=4M,
//             TIME=5

Executing a Procedure

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//STEP03   EXEC PROC=PAYROLL,
//             REGION=6M
 
//STEP04   EXEC BILLING,    (abbreviated form without PROC=)
//             PARM='MONTHLY'

Notes

  • Each job step must start with an EXEC statement
  • JCL allows up to 255 job steps in a single job
  • PROC= is optional when specifying a procedure name
  • Parameters can override values in cataloged procedures using step.ddname and step.procstep.ddname formats
  • Step-level parameters can override job-level parameters

Related Concepts