This is just my opinion. Others may, and likely will, disagree. But just today, I came up with a reason to "log" to a UNIX file instead of a SYSOUT or z/OS sequential data set, and especially the latter.
There are many pluses of SYSOUT or UNIX over a sequential data set. First, you don't need to specify a SPACE= parameter. Second, unless you use an existing sequential data set and use DISP=SHR, you can't see the output as it is being generated. With SYSOUT, you can view it via SDSF. With a UNIX file, you can use ISPF browse or perhaps even the "tail" command on a UNIX shell session. The "tail" is nice because you can get to the bottom rather quickly. One major plus of a UNIX file over SYSOUT is if you have multiple "log" DDs in the same step and you'd like the output to be interspersed. This occurred to me because CA-Endevor enables multiple different traces by using multiple different DD names. Suppose you'd like a consolidated log in which each line was in close proximity to the other trace lines generated around the same time. I cannot think of a way to do this with either SYSOUT or a sequential data set. Perhaps I'm missing something. But for the above, in UNIX, you can easily do: // SET LOGFILE='/tmp/&SYSUID..this.trace' //* OTHER JCL //* TRACE DDS //EN$TRALC DD PATH='&LOGFILE', // PATHOPTS=(OWRONLY,OAPPEND,OCREAT), // PATHDISP=(KEEP,KEEP) // RECFM=FA,LRECL=133,BLKSIZE=133 //* //EN$TRITE DD PATH='&LOGFILE', // PATHOPTS=(OWRONLY,OAPPEND,OCREAT), // PATHDISP=(KEEP,KEEP) // RECFM=FA,LRECL=133,BLKSIZE=133 //* //* AND SO ON. //* Because I specified "unblocked" output, each line is written to the file immediately (OK, put in the UNIX kernel's buffer for the file). The OAPPEND on each means that every write operation is prefixed with a "go to the end of the file" type operation. Since the buffering for a given specific UNIX file is kept in a single file buffer in the kernel, this means that the lines should be written to the in pretty much time sequenced order. Hope this is at least of some interest. -- This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you? Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
