INCLUDE Statement

INCLUDE Statement

The INCLUDE control statement is used to select specific records from a file that meet certain conditions. It allows us to filter records by defining criteria such as values in particular fields, and only those records that satisfy the conditions are processed. All other records are excluded from the operation.

Syntax1 - Comparing with a constant

//SYSIN DD * 
    SORT FIELDS=COPY
    INCLUDE COND=(field1_starting_position, field1_length, field1_format,
		 relational_operator, constant)
/*

Syntax2 - Comparing with another field

//SYSIN DD * 
    SORT FIELDS=COPY
    INCLUDE COND=(field1_starting_position, field1_length, field1_format,
		 relational_operator, field2_starting_position, field2_length, field2_format)
/*
field1_starting_positionSpecifies the starting position of field1 to be compared
field1_lengthSpecifies the length of the field1 to be compared
field1_formatSpecifies the format of the field1. Format types include: CH (Character), ZD (Zoned Decimal), PD (Packed Decimal) and BI (Binary).
relational_operatorused for condition comparison. The available operators are - 
EQ 		Equal to
NE 		Not equal to
GT 		Greater than
GE 		Greater than or equal to
LT 		Less than
LE 		Less than or equal to
field2_starting_positionSpecifies the starting position of field2 to be compared
field2_lengthSpecifies the length of the field2 to be compared
field2_formatSpecifies the format of the field2.

Examples -

Scenario1 - Simple Character Comparison.

INCLUDE COND=(1,5,CH,EQ,C'HELLO')

Scenario2 - Numeric Comparison Using Zoned Decimal (ZD).

INCLUDE COND=(10,4,ZD,GT,1000)

Scenario3 - Multiple Conditions Using AND

INCLUDE COND=(1,3,CH,EQ,C'ABC',AND,10,5,ZD,LE,500)

Scenario4 - Multiple Conditions Using OR

INCLUDE COND=(1,3,CH,EQ,C'XYZ',OR,5,4,CH,EQ,C'ABCD')
Full Example