z/OS V1R9.0 TSO/E Command Reference

CALL CommandCALL commandUse the CALL command to load and execute a program that exists in executable(load module or program object) form. The program can be user-written or it can bea system module such as a compiler, sort, or utility program.You must specify the name of the program (load module or program object) to beprocessed except in those situations where the CALL command assumes module“TEMPNAME”. The program specified must be a member of a partitioned data set(PDS) or a partitioned data set extended (PDSE).You can specify a list of parameters to be passed to the specified program. Thesystem formats this data so that when the program receives control, register 1contains the address of a fullword. The three low-order bytes of this fullword containthe address of a halfword field. This halfword field is the count of the number ofbytes of information contained in the parameter list. The parameters immediatelyfollow the halfword field.When you pass parameters to a PL/I program, precede them with a slash (/). PL/Iassumes that any value before the slash is a run time option.When you pass parameters to a C program, precede them with a slash (/) only ifyou have specified the EXECOPS run time option; otherwise, the slash characterwill be included in the characters passed as parameters.If the program terminates abnormally, you are notified of the condition and mayenter a TEST command to examine the failing program.CALL command in the backgroundService aids, utilities, and other programs obtaining their input from an allocated filesuch as SYSIN must have the input in a data set or a job stream data set (onewhich contains the JCL to run the job and the data itself). After the data set iscreated, you can use the CALL command to execute the program that accesses theSYSIN data. Figure 1 illustrates the allocation and creation of input data sets.Information about command processing in the foreground and background isdescribed in z/OS TSO/E User’s Guide.//EXAMP1 EXEC PGM=IKJEFT01,DYNAMNBR=20//SYSTSPRT DD SYSOUT=A//SYSTSIN DD *profile prefix(user1)allocate file (sysprint) dataset(*)allocate file(sysin) altfile(inputdd)call (prog1)allocate file(sysin) altfile(inputdd2) reusecall (prog2)free all//INPUTDD DD ***input to prog1**//INPUTDD2 DD ***input to prog2**/*Figure 1. Allocating and creating input data sets in the background70 z/OS V1R9.0 TSO/E Command Reference