Glenn writes:
> Anyway, which is "proper" to include in a job stream:
>
>         !eod
>      or :eod
> ?
>
> Yes, I understand "!eod" gets translated to ":eod" so there's "really"
> no difference, but "!eod" just doesn't feel right.

When the job executes, the commands must start with a ":".  The STREAM
command assumes that jobs were written using a replacement character of
"!", due, for example, to the difficulty of typing ":EOD" into many
editors and the interactive STREAM command.  I'm not sure if there are
any other good reasons for it.

Help says:

     Begin each job in the input file with the !JOB command and
     terminate it with the !EOJ command.  Begin all commands with
     an appropriate substitute (other than colon) character, as
     in !JOB.  When the input file is spooled to a disk, MPE/iX
     replaces the substitute command identifier with a colon, so
     that the data files are properly interpreted when executed.

At least currently, the STREAM command appears to accept lines beginning
with a ":" as valid, no matter what the replacement character is.  This
applies to all records including JOB, EOD, and EOJ "cards".  So while
":EOD" seems to work, the official way to do it is to prefix the "EOD"
with whatever the replacement character is rather than the ":".

If it makes you feel better you can use ":" characters throughout your
job and then say :STREAM filename,: to explicitly indicate that you
want ":" to be the replacement character I suppose.

> I mean, neither :EOD nor :EOF: are actually "MPE commands," right?
> (Hmmm, I just noticed that EOD is in the 5.0 commands manual with
> the other commands, but :EOF: is not.)

"EOD" is certainly a command just as "HELLO" and "JOB" are.  ":EOF:" is
an in-band indication of an end-of-file condition, and is really a terminal
driver feature that the CI and the rest of the world don't know or
care about.

G.