--------------------------------<snip>-------------------------
z/OS certainly does have many nice things about it. But I am also
running it to several "gotcha" type things. The lack of the JCL DATE
card that I posted about previously is one of them. Since I'm already
typing I may as well detail those places where I find VSE to be better,
at least as far as I can tell so far.
1) Symbolic parameter support is better on VSE. In VSE you can set a
parm and then programatically query it. In z/OS the parms are resolved
to their actual values during JCL resolution (or whatever it's called)
so it doesn't even really exist at the time the program executes. Or
something like that. Having something similar in z/OS could also
possibly solve my DATE card issue. Specifically, something like this:
// SET DATE=20081001
//STEP01 EXEC PGM=PGM1
//STEP02 EXEC PGM=PGM2
//
In VSE PGM1 and PGM2 can use a VSE macro to query the value of the DATE
symbolic parameter. And yes, I do realize that you can do something like
the following:
// SET DATE=20081001
//STEP01 EXEC PGM=PGM1,PARM=&DATE
//STEP02 EXEC PGM=PGM2,PARM=&DATE
//
The problem with this is that it will not work for IMS batch, since the
program that is executed is the IMS driver program, DFSRRC00. The parm
date is not passed to the Cobol program that the IMS program executes.
----------------------------------<unsnip>-------------------------
I seem to remember somewhere somebody had a Assembler subroutine that
could be called from COBOL that would return the value of a symbolic JCL
parm. Should be just what you're looking for.
-------------------------------------<snip>----------------------
4) I'm iffy about the lack of "system standard labels" and "partition
standard labels". In some ways I like that the DD statements for all
files are required explicitly. That way you can easily tell what files a
job uses.Then again, for some very commonly used files it might be nice
to have system standard DD names.
-----------------------------------<unsnip>------------------------
Have you considered the use of a JCL INCLUDE statement?
Keep one set of standard DD statements somewhere and just use the
INCLUDE statement to get them into running JCL.
-------------------------------<snip>-------------------------
Anyway, I'll probably be posting many questions from this point forward.
Many will sound like complaints, but I'm just looking for the best
information. Hope no one takes it personally!
-------------------------------<unsnip>-------------------------
We take very little personally, but we're always glad to try and answer
questions. :-)
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