Understanding the EXEC Statement

Understanding the EXEC Statement

The EXEC statement serves as the starting point for each individual step within a job or procedure. Its primary role is to specify the program or procedure—whether cataloged or in-stream that the step will execute. Additionally, it provides instructions to the system on how to handle the execution of that step. A single job can include up to 255 steps

Syntax

//STEPNAME EXEC PGM=program-name

• STEPNAME: A unique label for the step.

• PGM: The name of the program or utility to execute.

Example

//STEP1 EXEC PGM=SORT

Here, the SORT utility is executed in the first step of the job.