IBM Mainframe Forum

how many jobs can be their in a single jcl????

One

Explain. (Not you, Prino. I know EXACTLY what you mean!)

If you expand out the abbreviation, the question would read:

how many jobs can be there in a single job control language????

in which case my answer would be all of them.

There are several ways to interpret the question. Prino's answer is correct if the question is, "How many jobs can be contained in one job?" If the question is, "How many jobs can be contained in one dataset containing JCL?" the correct answer is there is no defined limit. From time to time I've submitted hundreds of jobs in a single dataset. This would be inconvenient to submit with a SUBMIT command, but if you're using a program to copy the dataset to a JES dataset defined as an internal reader it does not present a problem. If there are more jobs in the dataset than the JESx defined job limit, JESx will stop reading the dataset until it purges a job from its job queue.

I do not think that there is such a thing as 'a JCL' unless you are talking about a 'jam coated lemur'. There is JCL statement, a JCL manual (more than one but I suggest the User Guide and Reference manuals), a JCL error etc etc.

There can be a maximum of 255 steps in a job.

I guess when you review the answers, from one to "no limit", steps to lemurs and "all of them", you will realise you didn't put enough information in your question. So, either a bit more detail, or put all the answers in a hat, close your eyes, find the hat again, pull one (answer) out, and go with that.