Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Of course; the first example specifies eight fields of one byte each, whilst the second specifies only seven.

SPUFI executes dynamic SQL. QMF does also, but allows the output to be formatted, and for the SQL to be embedded in a simple procedural language

Thanks Akatsukami! (What is the meaning of your name. I could not type without referring the spelling back and again :) ) It's archaic Japanese for "manifest deity" :D I was told that CLIST is out of support but I have searched it and most the documents from IBM still talk about CLIST. Th...

Picture strings. Note that in z/OS V2.1 and above you can also use regular expressions.

Execute the troubleshooting actions here.

Rexx runs on more platforms than just z/OS; it is non-proprietary and has many features that CLIST lacks. Rexx is to be preferred in developing new programs, and CLISTs should be converted to Rexx as resources allow.

In the first case, there is no difference.

In the second case: in a non-SMS-managed system, KEEP will keep the data set but not make an entry for it in the catalog, so that it must thereafter have its volser used in the JCL to specify its location. In a SMS-managed system, there is no difference.

As the variable-length tables topic of the Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Language Reference manual states:

The value of integer-1 must be greater than or equal to zero

What code page are you using?

A "bind error", to my mind, is anything that causes a bind to be unsuccessful. There are many causes besides contoken mismatch; the two I've seen most frequently are missing DBRMs and invalid tokens (e.g., a reference to a non-existent column).

In Rexx, no. However you can do so on an ISPF panel.

I'll take a stance combining that of Mr. Collins and that of Dr. Sorichetti. You should not be able to merely copy data sets from production to test; you should be able to do so only with the proper tools to provide for proper masking of the data. The fix-up should be developed in the test environme...

Enclose the remaining steps in an IF construct.

Are you specifying volsers?

Do not attempt to copy the RDW from the input data set; let Syncsort determine it.

No, I was merely asking why you did not specify PGM=BXPBATCH on the EXEC card, rather running it as a command in background TSO.

I am curious; why are you running BPXBATCH through background TSO rather than directly?

Do not post in multiple fora.

Prashant-kun, you'll likely also want to use the NULLOUT opton to have DFSORT or Syncsort give a non-zero return code if the data set is empty.