Take a look at the EXECIO topic within "Chapter 10. TSO/E REXX
commands" in IBM pub "z/OS TSO/E REXX Reference Version 2 Release 1"
(SA32-0972-00).
Among other things you'll see that specifying "*" as the first EXECIO
operand (this is the "lines" parameter) when DISKW is specified as the
second operand does not mean that all of the stem set elements will be
processed nor does it mean that the value contained in the zero'th
(stem.0) element is used to determine the number of "lines" to be
written. Rather, the behavior is documented as:
"lines
the number of lines to be written. This operand can be a
specific decimal number or an arbitrary number indicated by *."
:
:
:
"When EXECIO writes an arbitrary number of lines from a list of
compound variables, it stops when it reaches a null value or an
uninitialized variable (one that displays its own name).
The 0th variable has no effect on controlling the number of
lines written from variables."
Also, look at example 12 on page 239 of this same publication. This
example illustrates how to read all of the records from a file and
populate a stem variable set, and subsequently, write the populated
stem variable set to another file. It also illustrates the trouble
you can get into when specifying "*" as the "lines" operand in concert
with DISKW.
Bob
