HLASM Language Reference

Process Statement
Process Statement
The process statement is described under “*PROCESS Statement” on page 102.
PUNCH Instruction
The PUNCH instruction creates a record containing a source or other statement, or
an object record, to be written to the object file.
►►──┬─────────────────┬──PUNCH──string─────────────────────────────►◄
└─sequence_symbol─┘
sequence_symbol
is a sequence symbol.
string
is a character string of up to 80 characters, enclosed in single quotation marks.
All 256 characters in the EBCDIC character set are allowed in the character
string. Variable symbols are also allowed.
Double-byte data is permissible in the operand field when the DBCS assembler
option is specified. However, the following rules apply to double-byte data:
The DBCS ampersand and the single quotation mark are not recognized as
delimiters.
A double-byte character that contains the value of an EBCDIC ampersand
or a single quotation mark in either byte is not recognized as a delimiter
when enclosed by SO and SI.
The position of each character specified in the PUNCH statement corresponds
to a column in the record to be punched. However, the following rules apply to
ampersands and single quotation marks:
A single ampersand initiates an attempt to identify a variable symbol and to
substitute its current value.
A pair of ampersands is punched as one ampersand.
A pair of single quotation marks is punched as one single quotation mark.
An unpaired single quotation mark followed by one or more spaces simply
ends the string of characters punched. If a non-space character follows an
unpaired single quotation mark, an error message is issued and nothing is
punched.
Only the characters punched, including spaces, count toward the maximum of
80 allowed.
The PUNCH instruction causes the data in its operand to be punched into a record.
One PUNCH instruction produces one record, but as many PUNCH instructions as
necessary can be used.
You can code PUNCH statements in:
A source module to produce control statements for the linker. The linker uses
these control statements to process the object module.
208 HLASM V1R5 Language Reference