Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi.

Is not it line COND at first step of Job will always be false? And the step will always get executed, right?

I ask this because I saw a job which has got COND=(4,LT) at first step since 1995. This is rather misleading. Is my understanding correct?

From the MVS JCL Reference manual:

Location in the JCL
You can specify the COND parameter on any EXEC statement in the job. However, the system evaluates a COND parameter on the first EXEC statement in a job as false.

COND evaluated as FALSE means that the step is going to get executed. While it is slightly misleading to have COND on the first step, it could be that the COND is a relic from an earlier iteration of the JCL that had steps executed before what is now the first step. Or, the site standard is to place a COND on every EXEC. Whatever the reason, there's no problem with the coding of COND on the first step of a job.