Most control blocks haven't changed in 40 years. Sure, new ones get
added every decade or so, however, I think you'll be pretty safe!
Can you imagine all the code that IBM would have to change if they moved
or changed the odd control block?
Clem Clarke
Author, Jol - the easy alternative to JCL
Haynes, Stan wrote:
Interestingly, this is something being discussed in our shop right now. We have
an application with code that extracts a DSN by searching through the TIOT, in
order to perform some security check. We (z/OS support division) fear that this
user code is vulnerable to changes in z/OS control block layout, with the
possibility of having one of your LOB (Line Of Business) apps down. The app
people even asked if IBM would warn them of such cblock changes:
"Has IBM ever remapped the MVS Control blocks that a batch application program
accesses?
Will IBM ever remap the MVS Control blocks that a batch application program
will access?
How safe would it be for COBOL application code to access these MVS Control
Blocks?"
We know IBM doesn't provide COBOL code mapping the TIOT, so we believe it's
possible for an application to be unexpectedly crippled by a subtle z/OS
control block change, with management asking for delays (and/or back out) of
the latest z/OS rollout.
Shouldn't every effort be made to insulate appl code from the OS ? I fear the
day wil come when we'll have to forward the SMP APPLY CHECK listing to all
application programmers.
Do your shop(s) have a policy of sorts when it comes to accessing such data
(outside of any LE service) ?
Stan
Canada Revenue Agency
mailto:[email protected]
(613) 941-8091
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Giliad Wilf
Sent: June 23, 2011 8:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Obtaining System Information from a COBOL program
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:36:13 -0500, Daniel Rose<[email protected]>
wrote:
I had a COBOL programmer ask me how they could get the LPAR name,
SYSNAME,
or SMFSID from a COBOL program. I could not find a LE Function that would
do that. So, a co-worker located a sample program that chases controls to
get that information.
Does anybody know of any LE Functions or a cleaner way to do this.
BTW, the programmer does not want to add a SORT step before the COBOL
program nor do they want to change the execution JCL. Hence the restriction
of only obtaining this from inside the COBOL program.
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