In a recent note, Charles Mills said:
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:21:42 -0800
>
> You know, to return to an earlier thread, I would call this a user-hostile
> approach on MVS's part. Why would not a designer interested in producing
> user-accessible software, a system that would not have a reputation for
> being hostile, why would he not put a bit in the DSCB-1 that said whether or
> not the file had ever been opened and closed for output? And if the flag
> were not set, have open input put out a readable message that said "you
>
As an alternative, DS1LSTAR should suffice as such a flag. I would
be delighted to see a design change such that any attempt to read
beyond DS1LSTAR would result in EODAD's being invoked. Yes, this
would break processes that write data sets with EXCP, fail to set
DS1LSTAR, then read them with {B|Q}SAM. It's what they deserve.
> can't open for input a file that has never been written"? Or at least to not
> attempt the impossible, reading a block length of zero, but instead to put
> out a "you can't read a block size of zero" message?
It is indeed "user-hostile" that IBM inflicts on customers this
ambiguity about where a data set ends.
-- gil
--
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