Additional rules for unique names

This describes additional rules involving special characters for object naming.

Additional rules involving special characters (as an extra character) that apply to the following types of names are:

• A Command label must be immediately followed by a colon (:). Blanks can follow the colon, but none can precede it. A command label name cannot be a quoted name.
• A CL variable name must be preceded by an ampersand (&) to indicate that it is a CL variable used in a CL program.
• The Built-in functions for CL must be preceded by a percent sign (%) to indicate that it is an IBM-supplied built-in function that can be used in an expression. A built-in function name cannot be a quoted name.

These special characters are not part of the name; each is an additional character attached to a name (making a maximum of 11 characters) indicating to the system what the name identifies.

The names of i5/OS™ objects, CL program variables, system values, and built-in functions can be specified in the parameters of individual commands. Instead of specifying a constant value, a CL variable name can be used on most parameters in CL programs to specify a value that may change during the running of programs. It is the contents of the variable that identify the objects and variables that are used when the command is run.