max length of data passed from JCL to COBOL

max length of data passed from JCL to COBOL

One of interview question on Jcl, I faced was what is the maximum length of data that can be passed  as Parm from JCL to COBOL.

As I have read somewhere that its 100 bytes of data that is maximum that can be passed from JCL to COBOL program, but then the interviewer confused me by asking that there are two bytes of data that are required to hold the length of data in COBOL program, I agreed to this, so he said if 100 bytes is max data and 2 bytes required to hold length of data. Then is the max limit 102 or 98 bytes of data.

I am still confused. The 2 bytes required for length of data are part of the 100 bytes or are they over and above it.

Any explanations??

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