On Sat, 8 Apr 2023 09:15:32 -0700, M. Ray Mullins (Ray) wrote: >PDSEs allow mixed case alias names up to 1023 bytes long. They can only be >seen through DESERV, so a utility not named ISPF can look at them (I think PDS >8.6 supports them). > >If you look at some of the CICS PDSE program object libraries, you can see >them in the member list (again, not under ISPF, sounds like a good IBM Idea™). > How does OMVS support program object names >8 characters or containing "invalid" characters? Must they be aliases? can they be re-linked or copied with "cp -X executable //LINKLIB.PDSE"?
My recollection of history, fading, corrections welcome: Before Binder existed, syntax of Linkage Editor commands limited names that could be used in commands to the Classic conventions: upper case alphanumeric and a few national. The description of object (SYSLIN) formats had no such restriction: any 8 octets were accepted. Some ISVs exploited this behavior to bootleg information in ESDs containing "invalid" characters that were intentionally difficult for end users to modify. Binder, in order to accommodate long names, chose a convention of regarding any character <=x'40' as a string terminator. (Cue outrage at "null-terminated" strings.) Such ISV-generated ESDs caused Binder misbehavior, perhaps even program checks. I noted in these lists that this was a compatibility violation uncharacteristic of IBM. IBM representatives such as John Ehrman responded that the ISVs had broken the rules; it was their responsibility to deal with the damage. I believe IBM was overstating the rules: they appeared to apply only to Linkage Editor commands, not to the content of object files generated by compilers. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
