How do I put today’s date in JCL?

I have a backup job which I run to take current copy of the file and save it with today’s date. For months I’ve been editing it to change today’s date. 10 minutes of browsing the internet showed me how easy it was!

For example

//MYLIBS1 JCLLIB ORDER=USER.Z24C.PROCLIB
// SET TODAY=D&YYMMDD
//S1 EXEC PROC=BACKUP,P=USER.Z24C.PARMLIB,DD=&TODAY.

The procedure has

//BACKUP PROC P='USER.Z24C.PROCLIB',DD='UNKNOWN'
//S1 EXEC PGM=IKJEFT01,REGION=0M,
// PARM='XMIT A.A DSN(''&P'') OUTDSN(''BACKUP.&DD..&P'')'
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSTSPRT DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSTSIN DD *
// PEND

which gave me

IEFC653I SUBSTITUTION JCL – PGM=IKJEFT01,REGION=0M,PARM=’XMIT A.A DSN(”USER.Z24C.PARMLIB”) OUTDSN(”BACKUP.D210906.USER.Z24C.PARMLIB”)’

I could have used (see here for a complete list)

• &LYYMMDD for local date
• &HHMMSS for time
• &LHHMMSS for local time

Easy – I should have done this years ago!