Characters with special meanings

Home

Characters with special meanings

The following characters have special meaning when you build MQSC commands:

Blanks are used as separators. Multiple blanks are equivalent to a single blank, except in strings that have quotation marks (') round them.
, Commas are used as separators. Multiple commas are equivalent to a single comma, except in strings that have quotation marks (') round them.
' A single quotation mark indicates the beginning or end of a string. WebSphere MQ leaves all characters that have quotation marks round them exactly as they are entered. The containing quotation marks are not included when calculating the length of the string.
'' Two quotation marks together inside a string are treated by WebSphere MQ as one quotation mark, and the string is not terminated. The double quotation marks are treated as one character when calculating the length of the string.
= On z/OS, an equals sign indicates the start of a parameter value which is ended by a comma or blank.
( An open parenthesis indicates the beginning of a parameter value or list of values.
) A close parenthesis indicates the end of a parameter value or list of values.
: A colon indicates an inclusive range. For example (1:5) means (1,2,3,4,5). This notation can be used only in TRACE commands.
* An asterisk means “all”. For example, DISPLAY TRACE (*) means display all traces, and DISPLAY QUEUE (PAY*) means display all queues whose names begin with PAY.

When we need to use any of these special characters in a field (for example as part of a description), enclose the whole string in single quotation marks.

Parent topic:
Rules for using MQSC commands

sc10250_

Home

	Blanks are used as separators. Multiple blanks are equivalent to a single blank, except in strings that have quotation marks (') round them.
,	Commas are used as separators. Multiple commas are equivalent to a single comma, except in strings that have quotation marks (') round them.
'	A single quotation mark indicates the beginning or end of a string. WebSphere MQ leaves all characters that have quotation marks round them exactly as they are entered. The containing quotation marks are not included when calculating the length of the string.
''	Two quotation marks together inside a string are treated by WebSphere MQ as one quotation mark, and the string is not terminated. The double quotation marks are treated as one character when calculating the length of the string.
=	On z/OS, an equals sign indicates the start of a parameter value which is ended by a comma or blank.
(	An open parenthesis indicates the beginning of a parameter value or list of values.
)	A close parenthesis indicates the end of a parameter value or list of values.
:	A colon indicates an inclusive range. For example (1:5) means (1,2,3,4,5). This notation can be used only in TRACE commands.
*	An asterisk means “all”. For example, DISPLAY TRACE () means display all traces, and DISPLAY QUEUE (PAY) means display all queues whose names begin with PAY.