Write comments in CL procedures

When you want to write comments in your CL procedures or add comments to commands in your procedures, use the character pairs /* and */. The comment is written between these symbols.

The starting comment delimiter, /*, requires three characters unless the /* characters appear in the first two positions of the command string. In the latter situation, /* can be used without a following blank before a command.

You can enter the three-character starting comment delimiters in any of the following ways (b represents a blank):

  /*b
  b/*
  /**

Therefore, the starting comment delimiter can be entered four ways. The starting comment delimiter, /*, can:

• Begin in the first position of the command string
• Be preceded by a blank
• Be followed by a blank
• Be followed by an asterisk (/**).

For example, in the following procedure, comments are written to describe possible user responses to a set of menu options:

         
        PGM        /* ORD040C ORDER DEPT GENERAL MENU */               
        DCLF       FILE(ORD040CD)                                      
 START: SNDRCVF    RCDFMT(MENU)                                        
        SELECT                                                         
          WHEN (&RESP=1) THEN(CALL CUS210)   /* CUSTOMER INQUIRY     */
          WHEN (&RESP=2) THEN(CALL ITM210)   /* ITEM INQUIRY         */
          WHEN (&RESP=3) THEN(CALL CUS210)   /* CUSTOMER NAME SEARCH */
          WHEN (&RESP=4) THEN(CALL ORD215)   /* ORDERS BY CUST       */
          WHEN (&RESP=5) THEN(CALL ORD220)   /* EXISTING ORDER       */
          WHEN (&RESP=6) THEN(CALL ORD410C)  /* ORDER ENTRY          */
          WHEN (&RESP=7) THEN(RETURN)                                  
        ENDSELECT                                                      
        GOTO START                                                     
        ENDPGM