Use Association

Use association allows the entities in a module to be accessible to other scoping units. This association remains in effect throughout the execution of the program. The mechanism for use association is the USE statement. The USE statement provides access to all public entities in the module, unless ONLY is specified. In this case, only the entities named in the ONLY list can be accessed.

If an entity that is accessed by use association has the same nongeneric name as a host entity, the host entity is inaccessible. A name that appears in the scoping unit as an external name in an EXTERNAL statement is a global name, and any entity of the host that has this as its nongeneric name is inaccessible.

For more information on rules that apply to use association, see the USE statement.