Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hello. They are all part of the same "product" collectively known as DFSort. ICEGENER is a drop-in replacement for IEBGENER that has some performance improvements. Any place you are currently using IEBGENER to simply copy a complete file you can plug ICEGENER in it's place. DFSORT is the m...

In which case, you'll need the reason code to determine why the resource has been made unavailable. That will be the 8 digit hex code that starts 00C, 00D, 00E, or 00F. Once you know the why you can determine how to fix it. If it is something like the table needs recovery or repair, then it's possib...

Hello. There isn't a way of listing the uncataloged datasets on the system because, well, they're uncatalogued. You need to know what volume the dataset you are looking for is on. Once you know that, you can use ISPF 3.4 to list the datasets on that specific volume. Use F10/F11 to cycle through the ...

In an interview situation, there's no harm in asking the interviewer questions. If that was the extent of the question that they asked, then my response would be "it depends on what the variable is used for" and then ask what context the variable is being used in. Sometimes, the reason for...

One of the common practices I've seen repeatedly is the situation where the record declaration in the FILE SECTION is essentially treated as a dummy that simply defines the record length. The declarations of the individual fields in the record are defined within WORKING STORAGE (usually as a copyboo...

Hello.

Well, I'm presuming that the variable they are talking about changing would affect the length of a record, so the LRECL of the file would have to be altered accordingly.

Hello. The -904 SQLCODE is documented here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2-for-zos/13?topic=esc-904 The "00000302" bit is a resource type, in this case for a page in the named table space. A list of the resource types can be found here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2-for-zos/13?topic=mes...

  I think we can not use GROUP BY and ORDER BY in the same cursor? Actually, you can. For example: SELECT CREATOR,COUNT(*) FROM   SYSIBM.SYSTABLES             GROUP  BY CREATOR                   ORDER  BY 2 DESC                   The GROUP BY clause will sort the data in order to perform an aggrega...

The SQLCA field descriptions are here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2-for-zos/13?topic=sqlca-description-fields The most useful (and most commonly used) thing in there is the SQLCODE. Over the years, I've found it's fairly rare to find an embedded SQL program which uses pretty much any of the other...

Yes. COBOL does not handle character data in the same way as something like C where there is a string termination character (the null). If you do MOVE 'A' TO WA-FIELD-1 and WA-FIELD-1 is 40 characters, COBOL will move the 'A' followed by 39 spaces. You have to rely on other means to determine that t...

Hello. The available information about any SQL errors you encounter should be within the SQLCA (the SQL Communication Area). The subject of error handling has come up before and my general recommendation would be to use the DB2's error handling module DSNTIAR to help with message reporting. There's ...

Hello. There are other utilities available that are designed for the handling of VSAM files which are attached to larger products intended to make the files more usable and accessible from ISPF. Compuware's FileAid is a good example of this. While better known for the ISPF interface, it does come wi...

Hello. COBOL does have an intrinsic function called LENGTH, which can be used like this: MOVE FUNCTION LENGTH(WA-INPUT-FIELD) TO WA-LENGTH This will give you the length of the alphanumeric field or group field defined in working storage. It won't do anything clever like working out the length of the...

Hello. It's just a matter of moving your non-displayable value to a field that is displayable. So, for S9(5)V9(2), a field defined as -9(5).9(2) would give you a result which would be an minus sign (or blank if the number is positive) and your number with leading zeros. Changing the minus to a plus ...

Hello. At it's most basic, ZOWE is an extension for VSCode that puts an IDE in front of the mainframe. Rather than logging on to TSO, you sign in via ZOWE through your PC and use its editor and features rather than those of ISPF. It'll let you work with datasets and job output from the MVS filesyste...

Prior to version 2, JES2 could not be told to substitute symbols into in-stream data so if you did //SYSUT1    DD * &YYMMDD &HHMMSS then the string "&YYMMDD &HHMMSS" is what would appear in the SYSUT1 input. In order to get around this limitation for TCP/IP, a program calle...

The symbol converter isn't actually necessary. Since version 2, symbols can be put into in-stream data providing JES2 is told to resolve them via the "SYMBOLS" parameter. For example, the following will copy the date and time symbols to sysout: //STEP2   EXEC PGM=ICEGENER //SYSPRINT  DD SY...

Hello. There are a number of system symbols that are available for use in JCL which are documented here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/3.1.0?topic=symbols-dynamic-system The bulk of these symbols relate to dates and times. If you don't want the complete date/time formats provided, there are enough...

Hello. In most of the places I've worked, the running of the mainframe is divided into two groups. The first is the administration side which is essentially the systems programmers. These folks are responsible for the configuration and software set up of the mainframe. If some new software is requir...

For a VSAM file, this error can occur if the file is empty. If that's the case, then you need to load a dummy record into the file. This can be done programatically or you can use the REPRO statement under IDCAMS to get the record in there.