Rational Developer for System z
Enterprise PL/I for z/OS, Version 3.8, Language Reference Manual

DEFINE ALIAS statement

The DEFINE ALIAS statement specifies a name that can be used as a synonym for the set of data type attributes you give to the alias.

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>>-DEFINE--ALIAS--alias-name----attribute-+--;-----------------><
 
alias-name
Specifies the name that can be used wherever the explicit data type defined by the specified attributes is allowed
attributes
The attributes that can be specified are any of the attributes for variables that can be returned by a function (for example, those attributes valid in the RETURNS option and attribute). These valid attributes are listed in Table 8. Therefore, you cannot specify an alias for an array or a structured attribute list. However, you can specify an alias for a type that is defined in a DEFINE ORDINAL, or DEFINE STRUCTURE statement (see DEFINE ORDINAL statement and Defining typed structures and unions), or in another DEFINE ALIAS statement. Also, as in the RETURNS option and attribute, any string lengths or area sizes must be restricted expressions.

Missing data attributes are supplied using PL/I defaults.

Example

  define alias Name   char(31) varying;
  define alias Salary fixed dec(7);     /* real by default       */
  define alias Zip    char(5)           /* nonvarying by default */

Whenever Name is used in a DECLARE statement, it has the attributes char(31) varying.


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