On 27 February 2013 10:08, Phil Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Steve. I had searched for that book but somehow wound up in the > Assembler Services Guide, which of course wasn't as helpful. > > Removing the extra quotes seems to have fixed it: > SAVE (14,12),,'&SYSPARM &SYSDATE &SYSTIME' > > Am I unreasonable to be vaguely horrified that the samples don't even work?
No. But it's a fact of life these days. IBM ships all sorts of assembler stuff that either doesn't work at all (e.g. some VTAM/VSAM macros), breaks commonly used conventions or newer HLASM functions (e.g. SETRP), or is so badly designed as to be near impossible to use without local changes or ugly workarounds (some IRX macros). I am sure the main reason for this is that hardly anyone in IBM writes assembler code anymore. IBM developers use PL/X, and only if defined programming interfaces or the need for sample programs call for it, are assembler pieces written, but often enough they are not tested even to the point of obtaining a clean assembly. There is the related problem of many "assembler" mapping macros (e.g. IGWSMF) being generated in a programmer-surly form from PL/X (or some other?) originals, but that is perhaps another rant. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
