On 25/02/2023 8:03 am, Bob Bridges wrote:
Oh, I was going to mention that surely allocating datasets, either in batch or TSO, has got to seem like one of the dumbest and most incomprehensible things we do on the mainframe, to a foreigner.
Allocating datasets shouldn't be that hard to grasp. "Dataset" is actually a pretty common term and generally implies a collection of data with more structure than just a file.
If people have worked with databases, presumably they have encountered the concept of defining the schema.
A dataset is simply a collections of records (similar to a database table) where each record has a fixed length or limited variable length and the total collection has a size limit. Any structure within the records is up to the application. This is not an unusual construct.
What is unusual is that z/OS uses such a structured format for almost everything, not that it exists.
-- Andrew Rowley Black Hill Software ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
