Allan said: "The major drawback is that each SYMBOLICRELATE alias must be updated (manually) whenever the underlying object changes."
I don't see why. In fact, that is exactly the reason we DO use them. Here's a 3.4 of our TMS.PROD datasets, for example: TMS.PROD.CTAPMENU *ALIAS TMS.PROD.CTAPOPTN *ALIAS TMS.PROD.CTAPPENU *ALIAS TMS.PROD.CTAPSAMP *ALIAS TMS.PROD.CTAPTENU *ALIAS TMS.PROD.PPOPTION *ALIAS Here's a listcat of TMS.PROD.CTAPMENU: ALIAS --------- TMS.PROD.CTAPMENU IN-CAT --- UCAT.VSYSXX1 HISTORY RELEASE----------------2 ASSOCIATIONS, SYMBOLIC-TMS.&TMSLEVL..CTAPMENU RESOLVED-TMS.V126SP00.CTAPMENU Here's my symdef for TMSLEVL: SYMDEF(&TMSLEVL.='V126SP00') /* Level of TMS */ Here are my libdefs for TMS in ISPF: "LIBDEF ISPMLIB DATASET ID('TMS.PROD.CTAPMENU')" "LIBDEF ISPPLIB DATASET ID('TMS.PROD.CTAPPENU')" "LIBDEF ISPTLIB DATASET ID('TMS.PROD.CTAPTENU')" And here's my definition for DEFINE ALIAS (NAME(TMS.PROD.CTAPOPTN) - SYMBOLICRELATE(TMS.&TMSLEVL..CTAPOPTN)) I ran this a year or so ago when the low level qualifiers changed for CA1, but other than that, these aliases never change. Perhaps you're thinking of a plain old relate. MA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html