You can pass data between programs by using channels and containers, or by using a communication area (COMMAREA).
If you use a COMMAREA, you are limited to passing 32 KB at a time. If you use a channel and containers, you can pass more than 32 KB between programs. The COMMAREA or channel, and any other parameters, are passed as arguments to the appropriate methods.
Many of the methods are overloaded; that is, they have different versions that take either a different number of arguments or arguments of a different type. There might be one method that has no arguments, or the minimum mandatory arguments, and another that has all of the arguments. For example, the Program class includes the following different link() methods: