On Wednesday 31 January 2007 14:53, Reda, John wrote: > This is clearly much more feasible than programming around the > restriction. I will speak with the Development Group about this.
Thanks, John, your help is much appreciated. There's a fourth solution around this problem I forgot to mention: convert VSAM files to non-VSAM. In VSE, sequential files which have no need to be VSAM are often defined as VSAM ESDS, simply because DASD management is so deficient in VSE. Then you have VSAM-managed SAM files, which, among other things, can be processed indifferently as VSAM or non-VSAM by application or utility programs. Quite confusing if you ask me. Converting files from VSAM to non-VSAM require source-code changes, but it can lead to many negative side-effects which make it risky business. In other words, if you think that changing -AS- to -S- in the ASSIGN clause of an ESDS in COBOL is a simple and easy way to make it non-VSAM, you may be in for quite a surprise later on. Having said that, we have converted thousands of VSAM files to non-VSAM in recent years, and acquired much experience in the process. -- Gilbert Saint-Flour GSF Software http://gsf-soft.com/ >> >> What I would like is that SORT utility programs be enhanced with an >> option to read SORTIN data sets using several DD names, such as >> SORTIN01-SORTIN99. This is already what they do when the command >> is MERGE, but when the command is SORT, the only thing they do is read >> the SORTIN concatenation . Here's an example of what I would like: >> >> //STEP100 EXEC PGM=SORT >> //SORTIN01 DD DSN=VSAM.DATA.SET,DISP=OLD >> //SORTIN02 DD DSN=NON-VSAM.DATA.SET,DISP=OLD >> //SORTOUT DD DSN=.... >> SORT FIELDS=(1,8,CH,A) >> /* >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> Behalf Of Gilbert Saint-Flour >>> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:53 AM >>> To: [email protected] >>> Subject: Re: Dorting multiple VSAM and PS files >>> >>> I certainly have, way too many times! Just last year, I had a >>> customer which had that particular problem in over 700 SORT steps. >>> >>> Over the years, I have used three approaches to solve this problem: >>> >>> 1. a generic E15/E35 exit called VSAMSORT which I first wrote in 1985 >>> >>> 2. An ICETOOL step with COPY/COPY/SORT (an obviously more recent >>> solution) >>> >>> 3. a request to the DFSORT developers to add support for multiple >>> VSAM input files - that never worked :-( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
