Editing Job Control Language (section)

===Referbacks===
In multi-step jobs, a later step can use a ''referback'' instead of specifying in full a file which has already been specified in an earlier step. For example:
<syntaxhighlight lang="jcl">
//MYPROC ................
//MYPR01 EXEC PGM=..........
//NEWFILE DD DSN=&MYFILE,UNIT=DISK,SPACE=(TRK,50,10),
//           DCB=(LRECL=100,BLKSIZE=1000),DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE)
....
//MYPR02 EXEC PGM=..........
//INPUT01 DD DSN=*.MYPR01.NEWFILE
</syntaxhighlight>

Here, <code>MYPR02</code> uses the file identified as <code>NEWFILE</code> in step <code>MYPR01</code> (<code>DSN</code> means "dataset name" and specifies the name of the file; a DSN could not exceed 44 characters<ref>{{cite web
   |url=https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.1.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r1.idad400/name.htm
   |title=Data set names
   |website=[[IBM]]
 |date=27 March 2014
 |quote=Data set names must not exceed 44 characters, including all name segments and periods.}}</ref>).

In jobs which contain a mixture of job-specific JCL and procedure calls, a job-specific step can refer back to a file which was fully specified in a procedure, for example:
<syntaxhighlight lang="jcl">
//MYJOB JOB ..........
//STEP01 EXEC MYPROC             Using a procedure
//STEP02 EXEC PGM=.........      Step which is specific to this job
//INPUT01 DD DSN=*.STEP01.MYPR01.NEWFILE
</syntaxhighlight>
where <code>DSN=*.STEP01.MYPR01.NEWFILE</code> means "use the file identified as <code>NEWFILE</code> in step <code>MYPR01</code> of the procedure used by step <code>STEP01</code> of this job". Using the name of the step which called the procedure rather than the name of the procedure allows a programmer to use the same procedure several times in the same job without confusion about which instance of the procedure is used in the referback.