For the last six or seven years, August / September
has been a very busy time for me. This is when the
IBM publications for the new release of z/OS become
available, and I download these pubs and read them,
looking for changes that impact your applications
programmers.
Then I update the courses I'm responsible for wherever
the new changes impact the course content.
Then I publish a brief synopsis of these changes to
my opt-in list and then various listservs and individual
clients. So here we go ...
This year the new release of z/OS is V1R13. There were
only a few aspects that may be useful to the typical
application programmer. Although the z114 was also
recently introduced, it only merits a minor mention
because it has the same instruction set as the
previously covered z196.
The usefulness of any particular feature will vary from
person to person, of course; I figure if you see something
that looks helpful to you that you can check the docs
(or, of course, schedule a class!)
Highlights:
* JCL procs and INCLUDE members can have SYSIN type data
(JES2 shops)
* New z/OS UNIX command: script
* ISPF 3.4 data set list: can type AL command to allocate
a new data set with the same characteristics
* New JCL parameters JOBRC, FREEVOL
As usual, all of my courses that discuss any of the above
topics have been updated to reflect these changes /
enhancements.
Let me know if you're aware of any other training vendor who does that!
---------
JCL cataloged and in-stream procedures may now
have data set as DD * or DD DATA included
INCLUDE members may also contain DD * or DD DATA data
(the above two points are for JES2 shops only)
The JOB statement adds parameter
JOBRC=MAXRC
JOBRC=LASTRC
JOBRC=(STEP,stepname[.procstepname])
DD statements for multiple volume tape files may
now have this parameter: FREEVOL={END|EOV} to
indicate when a volume should be released for
use by another job
RETPD: if value specified > 9999, 9999 will be used
if resulting expiration date > 12/31/2155,
then 12/31/2155 will be used
For SYSOUT DD statements, SPIN option has been
enhanced with new choices:
SPIN=NO - default
SPIN=UNALLOC - spin off at step end or on operator command request
SPIN=(UNALLOC,'hh:mm') - spin off the data set at an exact time each day
(24-hour clock)
SPIN=(UNALLOC,'+hh:mm') - spin off the data set at intervals of hh hours
and mm minutes
minimum of 10 minutes (e.g.: '+00:10' )
SPIN=(UNALLOC,nnn[M|K]) - spin off the data set every nnn
[units or million or thousand] lines
minimum of 500 lines (e.g.: 500 )
SPIN=(UNALLOC,NOCMD) - cannot spin off the data set before unallocation
SPIN=(UNALLOC,CMDONLY) - spin off the data set only when an operator
issues a command
Note: SPIN overrides FREE if they conflict
The LISTDSI service can cause a dataset's SYSREFDATE value to be
updated (not sure if this is new; probably just documenting a
fact that was not acknowledged before)
ISPF / Dialog Manager
* EDIT and VIEW support user written line command macros
* DIRLIST service has new parameter FROM(pathname) for
positioning list on first display
* DSINFO and LMDLIST populate two new dialog variables:
ZDSCJOBN - create job name; ZDSCSTPN - create step name
* DSLIST (ISPF 3.4) has new line command: AL - allocate a
file with attributes of filename command is typed over
* UDLIST (ISPF 3.17) has new line command: MA - modify
access list
The program binder has a new COMPAT value: ZOSV1R13,
which is the first variant of the binder to support
"conditional sequential RLDs" - which I frankly don't
see the need or value of, so maybe somebody can
elighten me on that
The zOS UNIX obrowse and oedit commands now use the
ISPF browse and edit services (since z/OS 1.11); if
you want to use the previous z/OS UNIX services, set
environment variable BPXWISISP=NO (since z/OS 1.13)
The vi and ex commands support two new flags:
-B to suppress automatic codepage conversion
for tagged files
-W to identify codepages for data and editor
for non-tagged files
z/OS UNIX has a new command, 'script' that will
capture all commands and responses in a text file
for later processing; looks quite useful
The z/OS UNIX 'tsocmd' command will propogate file
descriptors 10-99 to the TSO command processor if
you set BPXWRFT=YES
LE (Language Environment) enhances the CEEPIPI services
by supporting multiple 'main' environments and by
providing calls to set and get the CAA user word value
LE adds country support for Azerbaijan and the Republic
of Georgia for Country codes
--------
Because of the above, and also the recent updates to
HTML 5, all of the courses listed below have been
updated in the last 60 days!
A500 Introduction to z/OS
A633 TSO/ISPF in z/OS
A634 ISPF Update
A635 Advanced ISPF in z/OS
A700 ISPF and JCL on z/OS
A750 TSO REXX Programming in z/OS
A810 Developing Dialog Manager Applications in z/OS
B610 z/OS JCL and Utilities
B620 Advanced Topics in z/OS JCL
C500 z/OS Assembler Programming Part 4: z/Architecture and z/OS
D732 Enterprise COBOL Debugging and Maintenance
M512 Using LE Services in z/OS
M520 Cross Program Communication in z/OS
U510 Introduction to z/OS UNIX
U515 Shell Script Programming in z/OS UNIX
U520 Developing Applications for z/OS UNIX
U518 You and z/OS and the World Wide Web
UC01 Introduction to CGIs on z/OS
UC04 Writing z/OS CGIs in COBOL
UC06 Writing z/OS CGIs in Assembler
You can find links to detailed descriptions of these
(and all our) courses at:
http://www.trainersfriend.com/General_content/CourseIndex.htm
Finally, a reminder: our promotion for DB2 training ends soon - see
the signature file below.
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
* Special promotion: 15% off on all DB2 training classes
scheduled by September 1, taught by year end 2011
* Check out our entire DB2 curriculum at:
http://www.trainersfriend.com/DB2_and_VSAM_courses/DB2curric.htm
