The following characters are used as operand delimiters:
- Quotation mark
- Designates the beginning or ending of a literal, as for example,
a heading. When a quoted string contains a quotation mark, use two
quotation marks; for example, ‘THAT''S ALL FOLKS'. CICS PA replaces
each pair of consecutive quotation marks with a single quotation mark
before processing the command string. The ending quotation mark of
a quoted string can be followed by a comma or a left or right parenthesis.
Quoted strings cannot exceed 256 characters.
- Dash or hyphen
- Separates a range of values and, except when used in a quoted
string, is treated as such. If a dash is followed by another delimiter,
the second value is null.
- Parentheses
- Enclose suboperands or values. The right parenthesis must be followed
by another right parenthesis, a comma, a space, or a left parenthesis.
- Equal sign
- Designates that a value follows. For example, A = B is treated
as A(B). The equal sign can be used in this way only when followed
by a single value. If you assign more than one value, use parentheses.
When the equal sign is followed by a left parenthesis, it is ignored.
- Comma
- Delimits operands. (Omit the comma when its use is redundant).
Consecutive commas cause generation of a null in the scan list, and
must be counted toward the maximum number of operands allowed.