Fair enough. User symbol names don't need to be unique in the universe. But it's helpful to have some consistent prefix that makes them stand out (and sort together) in a display. And I stick by the 8-character name standard unless the name has to be shorter in some context.
. . JO.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 626-302-7535 Office 323-715-0595 Mobile jo.skip.robin...@sce.com From: "Joel C. Ewing" <jcew...@acm.org> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU, Date: 01/22/2014 12:06 PM Subject: Re: System Symbols Question Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> If your company is a member of SHARE (http://www.share.org ), then someone at your installation is the designated SHARE Installation Rep and he would know your SHARE Installation code. If you aren't a member of SHARE you don't have one. They are typically three characters based on company name and are only forced to be unique from other members of SHARE, not from any 3-char sequences used in other contexts. SHARE members have access to a SHARE Member Directory, but that list is supposed to be secured and only available to members. I don't really like the earlier suggestion to use SHARE code prefixes on symbol names, since the SHARE Installation Code might differ from more obvious customary local abbreviations for your company; and there is really no need in the context given to distinguish your local symbols from that of other installations, only to differentiate them from default system symbols. If for some reason a vendor needed to have a system symbol defined for their product, I would think the only safe way to avoid conflicts would be to allow each installation to customize the name when the product is installed. Joel C. Ewing On 01/22/2014 01:13 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote: > On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:48:42 -0800, Skip Robinson wrote: > >> Good catch. In my recent SHARE pitch on system symbols, I strongly >> recommend that all installation-defined symbols be a full eight characters >> long regardless of initially anticipated value. In addition, I recommend >> that all such symbols be prefixed with an installation identifier, such >> as SHARE company code, to clearly identify them as user defined. This >> practice will also group installation symbols together in a D SYMBOLS >> display. >> > Where are the SHARE company codes listed? What is their domain of > applicability? Do these exist in parallel and in contention with IBM > registered component prefixes. > > In a universe with less archaic length restrictions, the custom is to incorporate > a registered domain name, rewritten big-endian. IBM shows some slight > adherence to this in such as: > > /usr/lpp/booksrv/cgi-bin/com.ibm.bkmgr.CgiJavaBridge.jar > /usr/lpp/smp/classes/com/ibm/smp/GIMJVCLT.class > > What!? not "com.IBM"? > > I surely wish SMP/E SYSMOD IDs were so flexible that we could > incorporate a corporate ID (preferably domain name) in PTF > names. > >> From: Tom Marchant >> Date: 01/22/2014 05:42 AM >> >>> SYMDEF(&IP1='121.122') >> >> No. As documented, "The length of the resolved substitution text cannot >> exceed the length of &symbol, including the ampersand on &symbol and >> excluding the single quotation marks on 'sub-text'." >> >> So your example is not valid. >> > An abomination; it ain't that hard to code a routine that substitutes > values longer than their names. Doesn't that work for JCL symbols? > > But they can *never*fix*it* if, as I assume, the symbol substituting > facility has no way to report a buffer overflow, and (some) callers are > in no position to handle an error if one were reported. > > -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
