Naming within commands

The type of name you specify in control language (CL) determines the characters you can use to specify a name.

For certain types of names, there are restrictions on the use of certain characters to represent the name. Those types of names are *NAME, *SNAME, and *CNAME.

Note: For a description of how to specify these names when you use command definitions to create commands, see the PARM (parameter) and ELEM (element) statements in Defining a command.

The characters allowed for the *NAME, *SNAME, and *CNAME names and the rules you use to specify them are shown in the following table.

Table 1. Allowable characters for *NAME, *SNAME, and *CNAME
Type of name First character Other characters Min. length Max. length
*NAME 1
A-Z,
$, #,
@
A-Z, 0-9, $,
#, @, _, .
1 256
*SNAME 1
A-Z,
$, #,
@
A-Z, 0-9,
$, #, @, _
1 256
*CNAME 1
A-Z,
$, #,
@
A-Z, 0-9,
$, #, @
Quoted name 2
"3
Any except blank, *, ?, ', ", X'00'-X'3F', and X'FF' 3 256
Notes:
  1. The system converts lowercase letters to uppercase letters.
  2. Quotation marks can only be used for basic names (*NAME).
  3. Both the first and last characters must be a quotation mark (").