Ampersand variables

These variables are substituted from left to right within the line. Ampersand variables correspond to the standard variables in z/OS® JCL procedures and behave accordingly.

If an &-variable is immediately followed by a % variable (that is, there is no intervening termination character), a compound variable is formed (for details, see Compound variables). A compound variable is also formed if an &-variable immediately follows a ?-variable.

Any string that begins with && is not substituted. This is because the double ampersand within JCL is usually used to denote a temporary data set. Any such strings are unaffected by the variable substitution.

Note: Also, strings beginning with %% or ?? are not substituted, in order to keep consistency with the behavior of && and to avoid the incorrect use of delimiters.

If the JCL member contains symbolic parameters in the format &SYMBOLIC and you do not want HCL Workload Automation for Z to attempt resolution, define the variable in an HCL Workload Automation for Z JCL variable table. Define the variable with a blank default value, and specify that a value is not required. For more information, see User-defined variables and variable tables.