Hi Walter, With regard to "are you saying that the application program which actually writes the tape has the last word to decide how to block the dataset on tape?"
Historically DCB information has been acquired via the Open/Merge process which applies to data sets irrespective of them being tape or disk based. The DCB information sources are in order: 1) The program 2) The JCL 3) The File Label If the DCB is incomplete after all three are processed then S013 occurs. Thus if it is a COBOL program and the programmer specifies something other than BLOCK CONTAINS 0, then the program value will be taken and the other two sources will be ignored. A lot of installations have a standard of coding BLOCK CONTAINS 0 to provide for the flexibility of being able to adjust BLKSIZE via the JCL for output data sets. It is logical for consistency that BLKSIZE=0, (invoking SDB) would only be relevant if the program has allowed the option which has Ted mentioned is discussed in the JCL manual. Kind regards - Terry Terry Sambrooks Director KMS-IT Limited 228 Abbeydale Road South Dore, Sheffield, S17 3LA, UK Tel: +44 (0)114 262 0933 WEB: www.legac-e.co.uk Company Reg: 3767263 at the above address All outgoing E-mail is scanned, but it remains the recipient's responsibility to ensure their system is protected from spy-ware, trojans, viruses, and worms. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
