OPTIONS(VARIABLE) is an entry name attribute that indicates, for an ENTRY descriptor, that a specified external procedure can be invoked with a variable number of arguments; a discrepancy may exist between the number of parameter descriptors in the declaration of the procedure and the number of arguments in the argument list used to call the procedure.
OPTIONS(VARIABLE) attribute is parsed and is otherwise ignored. It is an invalid attribute for a PROCEDURE or ENTRY statement, as opposed to the ENTRY attribute.