Which of the following is true?
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Under no circumstances must a DD statement precede an EXEC statement.
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The OPERATION JOB can be coded in position 4.
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An OPERATION can be coded beyond position 72, as long as it starts before position 72.
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A JCL OPERATION must be followed and preceded by at least one blank.
JCL operation naming and spacing rules must be followed. Option D is correct because JCL operation names (JOB, EXEC, DD) must be separated by at least one space for readability and parser recognition - they cannot be adjacent to other text. Option A is incorrect because DD statements can precede EXEC statements in certain contexts like inline DD statements. Option B is incorrect because 'OPERATION' is not a valid JCL keyword - 'OPERATION' appears to be a confusion with actual JCL operations. Option C is incorrect because JCL statements cannot extend beyond position 72 (the standard continuation column).
JCL syntax requires that operation fields (like EXEC, DD, JOB) be delimited by at least one blank on either side, separating the operation from the preceding statement name and the following operand field; violating this spacing rule causes a JCL syntax error.