Here's something I've been doing on an annual basis
for the last four or five years. Hope you find it
interesting / helpful. Feel free to pass it on to
your people if you think they might find it useful...
I've been updating all the courses I'm responsible
for to reflect changes brought about by z/OS 1.11
in each course's subject area.
Actually, z/OS 1.11 and COBOL V4.2 have both been
announced, with COBOL being available at the end of
August and z/OS 1.11 being available near the end
of September, so I've included the COBOL changes
here also.
Since most folks don't get a chance to explore the new
features, I thought I'd list the features introduced in
these areas that I think might be of interest to applications
programmers.
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!)
There's lots here; my top two favorites:
* ISPF edit and view line command HX to display
individual lines in hex
* Enterprise COBOL 4.2 can use underscore in
user-defined names
But, read on and pick your favorites...
_For the Assembler programmer in you..._
* New 64 bit amode services for pause / release
functions; see also Language Environment below
_Various interesting developments_
* Big thing here is EAV (Extended Address Volumes)
which expand the capacity of DASD volumes past
65,520 cylinders (z/OS 1.10); for z/OS 1.11,
extended format sequential data sets are now
eligible to be placed on EAVs
* Apparently the new FILEDATA=RECORD and EATTR did not
make the ALLOCATE command, although they did make JCL
* Quite a few changes in SDSF, more details than desired
here; check the docs if you're into SDSF
[Above points discussed in various courses, where relevant.]
_TSO, CLIST, REXX, ISPF/Dialog Manager:_
* TSO: with LOGONHERE support, you can logon / reconnect
even if there has not been a disconnect; this allows
you to reconnect from one workstation while you are
still logged on to a different workstation; basically,
your session follows you! This is now the default
behavior. [Have not yet tested this]
* REXX: LISTDSI has some new values in the SYSRECFM
variable and returns two new variables regarding
data sets on EAV volumes
* CLIST: reflects the LISTDSI values mentioned for
REXX above
* ISPF: Editor adds line commands HX and HXX to allow
individual [groups of] lines to be displayed in hex
* ISPF: Dialog developers: a new Panel section, )INEXIT,
which requests each source line of a panel to be passed
to an identified exit routine to be processed before
being displayed; this routine can dynamically change the
panel source! if specified, )INEXIT must be the first
section of the panel definition
* ISPF: Dialog developers: a new keyword, OPT, on the
file tailoring )DOT statement; if specified, an empty
table will not cause dialog termination
* ISPF: the edit COMPARE command can request saving the
generated superc commands in a data set
* ISPF: STATS EXT edit primary command will support
extended statistics (line counts > 5 digits)
* ISPF: Dialog developers: EDIT service new keyword: ASCII
to edit an ASCII data set or member; same for VIEW; also
on edit and view entry panels (although I see these
parms on my z/OS 1.10 panels; perhaps its the documentation
catching up with the product)
* ISPF: Dialog developers: a new keyword on the LMMADD
service: EXT({NO|YES})
* ISPF: Dialog developers: LMMDISP service supports
extended statistics
* ISPF: Dialog developers: LMMFIND supports extended
statistics
* ISPF: Dialog developers: LMMREP supports extended
statistics
* ISPF: Dialog developers: LMMSTATS supports extended
statistics
* ISPF: 3.2 screen supports requesting extended attributes
(that is, if a data set is eligible to reside on an EAV)
* ISPF 3.4: explicit option to have your TSO id prefixed
to the DSname level if Dsname level not in quotes
* ISPF 3.17 (UDlist) enhancements
+ Options to set default commands based on file type
and to enter su mode
+ New line commands against files, including
AA - auditor auditing
UA - user auditing
FS - file system
MF - modify format
MG - modify group
MO - modify owner
_Program Binder_
* Allows binder parms to be passed in a file pointed
at with a DDNAME of IEWPARMS
* Binder COMPAT can be specified as ZOSV1R11; ZOSV1R8,
ZOSV1R9, ZOSV1R10, ZOSV1R11 are now considered "variants"
of PM5 output format
[discussed in "Secrets of Inter-Language Communication
in z/OS"]
_Language Environment (LE)_
* Additional options for HEAPCHK runtime parameter
* New parameters for CEENTRY, CEEPPA, CEEFETCH,
and new capabilities for CEEFETCH; new macro
to obtain information about fetched modules at
run time
[discussed in "Using LE Services in z/OS"]
_z/OS UNIX System Services_
* New FILEDATA type for z/OS UNIX files: FILEDATA=RECORD
creates files with each record having a four
byte prefix (x'00' followed by three byte
record length)
The prefix is built on write, removed on read, so a
program won't see it; useful for files whose records
have more than text (packed decimal, say, or binary
data): prevents inadvertent end of record by
accidentally having EBCDIC new line, x'15'
* 'ps' command has new -attr value, T, to
request showing trace status
[discussed in "Introduction to z/OS UNIX" and
"Shell Script Programming in z/OS UNIX", as
appropriate]
* C/C++ adds a bunch of new functions for calculations
(cube root of DFP number, for example) and socket
programming; a few places casually indicate minor
changes to be more supportive of the GNU C variant
(do a search on GNU)
* numerous functions such as fprintf, printf, sprintf
and more now support Decimal Floating Point (DFP)
* lots more details; check the docs
_Enterprise COBOL V4.2_
* You can use an underscore in user defined names of
data items and paragraph or procedure names and
external program names!
* Added support for validating XML parse, using an
XML-Schema file for the validity checking
* Explicitly documented a restriction on PERFORM ...
n TIMES: 'n' < 1,000,000,000
[discussed in "Enterprise COBOL Update I: Essentials"
and "Enterprise COBOL Update II: Unicode and XML
Support", as appropriate; the Underscore thingy is
integerated into virtually all our COBOL courses]
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
z/OS Application development made easier
* Our classes include
+ How things work
+ Programming examples with realistic applications
+ Starter / skeleton code
+ Complete working programs
+ Useful utilities and subroutines
+ Tips and techniques
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