Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

The implied decimal helps with packed decimal representation where there is no decimal point present in the data. The same is true for binary coded decimal but it can also be used on text-based numbers (if you're looking to save space). However, I'll concentrate on packed since that is where you are...

In general, most compiled languages tend to use pre-declared variables in some form whereas interpretters are more inclined towards using an ad-hoc definition-on-use declaration system. Yes, languages like C or Java may express their variable declarations in a simpler manner than COBOL, but they sti...

The most common way of using a cursor consists of a DECLARE CURSOR for a SELECT statement that will read a number of rows, an OPEN to start processing, a number of iterations of FETCH to retrieve the individual rows, then a CLOSE to terminate processing on the cursor. This will all be done within th...

I stand corrected... DFSORT can read VSAM. I'll admit that it's been a very long time since I last tried (and failed) to use it with anything other than a sequential file!

DFSORT only really likes sequential datasets, so using it do do this check on a VSAM file isn't doable (unless something has changed recently). What you need is an IDCAMS "PRINT" command: //STEP1 EXEC PGM=IDCAMS //SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=* //DD1 DD DSN=your.vsam.dataset,DISP=SHR //SYSIN DD * PR...

My understanding is that the mainframe AI enhancements are likely of most use to the banking and finance sector where things like automatic credit decisions or suspicious activity detection have been performed using AI techniques for quite some time. The inclusion of AI functionality in the z16 syst...

3.14 is the search utility which will let you find particular strings within the members of a PDS. If you give it the name of your copybook PDS and, say, a full or partial field name you want to find then 3.14 will report a list of members that match. 3.15 is the same tool but with more options avai...

DISP=NEW doesn't tolerate the dataset already existing, so assuming your job is a single step that takes an input dataset, processes it and writes the output dataset as new, the job will fail on the second run. The way to avoid this is to put in an initial step that deletes the dataset first: //STEP...

If you're logged onto TSO or running IKJEFT01 in batch, run "NETSTAT ALL (PORT 21" and you should get a whole load of info for the port back if the FTP daemon is running (assuming no one has changed the port number; 21 is the standard default). If you're a client wanting to connect in, the...

The sites I've worked on that have been using CICS have tended to leave it running continuously except for a small amount of outage time. Stuff that needed to run while CICS was down was considered a scheduling issue and so it was left to the operations staff to ensure that it happened at the right ...

If just finding out if the started task for the region is running would suffice, asking SDSF will do that: /*REXX*/ Arg Taskname . If ISFCalls("ON") = 0 Then Do ISFPrefix = Taskname ISFOwner = "*" Address SDSF "ISFEXEC DA" If RC ¬= 0 Then Retcode = 12 Else If ISFRows = ...

IBM has a thing called ZD&T which is an emulation system that lets z/OS run on a PC and will allow you full administration rights. This was intended for commercial use, so the pricing of it is rather high. They did, however, create a "Learner's Edition" which cost 120USD but it was onl...

Hello. There are IPv4 addresses which are four part dotted decimal (e.g. 10.6.33.96) and there are IPv6 addresses which are 128 bits long and in a colon-delimited hex format (e.g. 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). These are the addresses used by the machines connected to the network, but the...

That's what embedded SQL has meant since I started working with relational databases, and I go back to 1986 and SQL/DS (which is what DB2 for VM used to be called). According to the current DB2 manuals, it's still called that today... https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2-for-zos/12?topic=zos-embedded-sql...

Yes. Any time you've got an "EXEC SQL" in a program, you've got embedded SQL.

The term I've always heard and used is "embedded SQL". It's used for C, PL/1, assembler, etc as well and it's certainly the term used in the DB2 manuals. There are two forms. "Static" refers to having fixed SQL statements that can be handled by the precompiler (which gives a perf...

OK, I'm going to put my sysprog's hat on and ask you the question that I would ask if I were maintaining the system you're running on... What exactly are you doing that needs a job submitting every five seconds? The problem with jobs is that you've got absolutely no guarantee as to when they are goi...