Oops, my bad. I don't use regular ISPF panels so I gave a bad example; someone could NOT use regular ISPF panels to concatenate 'MY.COBOL.SOURCE' and 'TEST.COBOL.SOURCE' and 'PROD.COBOL.SOURCE' because only the MIDDLE qualifier can be different. A better example would be that 'PROJECT1.TEST.COBOL' and 'PROJECT1.ACCEPT.COBOL' and 'PROJECT1.PROD.COBOL' could all be concatenated.
Dave Salt SimpList(tm) - try it; you'll get it! http://www.mackinney.com/products/program-development/simplist.html > Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 13:03:45 -0400 > From: [email protected] > Subject: Re: ISRDDN SHOWS MEMBER ALIAS > To: [email protected] > > > From: [email protected] > > Hmm, I never use option 2 so I > didn't even know it would concatenate the various "group" level > datasets together. > > Been working on z/OS since the MVS XA days and never > needed that capability. I wonder if very many people use it. > > In my experience not many people use the concatenation capabilities of > regular ISPF. This is a great shame because it can be REALLY useful. However, > regular ISPF panels have a lot of restrictions that severely limit the > usefulness of concatenating libraries. For example, the libraries being > concatenated can only have 3 qualifiers, all of the qualifiers must be the > same (except for the middle one), and no matter which library an edited > member exists in it always get copied to and saved in the first library. > > This means someone could concatenate 'MY.COBOL.SOURCE' and > 'TEST.COBOL.SOURCE' and 'PROD.COBOL.SOURCE'. But they couldn't concatenate > 'MY.COBOL.COPYBOOK' because the last qualifier (COPYBOOK) doesn't match the > other qualifiers (i.e. SOURCE). In addition, even if they could concatenate > it they wouldn't want to because if they edited a member in COPYBOOK it would > be copied to and saved in SOURCE. > > The restrictions just mentioned do not exist in SimpList. However, regular > ISPF panels and SimpList do share the restriction that a maximum of 4 classic > libraries can be concatenated. Even so, the elimination of the other > restrictions makes working with concatenated libraries much more useful. For > example, someone could concatenate 'MY.COBOL' and 'PROJECT6.TEST.COBOL' and > 'PROD.GROUP1.COB.SOURCE' and 'PROD.ABC.ALL.COB.COPYBOOK'. The resulting > member list displays all 4 libraries merged into one, which has numerous > advantages. > > Right off the bat someone can see which library each member exists in, and > therefore knows which members are being worked on (which helps with avoiding > clobbering other people's changes). All of the required members can be worked > on from a single member list, which avoids having to keep swapping between > multiple split screens. Searches and changes can be conducted across all of > the merged libraries at once. If a member is changed, it can automatically be > copied to and saved in library 1 (just like regular ISPF), or saved in the > original library (which you would definitely want to do if the libraries > contain different types of members). If a member that's being browsed or > edited references another member in any of the merged libraries (e.g. a COBOL > program references a copybook), the referenced member can be opened for edit > or browse by pointing the cursor at it. The referenced member can be opened > on top of the existing member (in which case, exiting the referenced member > returns to the original member) or opened as a separate split screen session > (in which case, F9 can be pressed to swap back and forth between the calling > and called members). > > These and other advantages of working with merged libraries apply to more > than just COBOL. For example, ISPF dialog development can be simplified by > merging REXX, panel, message, and skeleton libraries. Assembler and macro > libraries can be merged, JCL proc and driver libraries can be merged, and so > on. > > Having worked with concatenated libraries for many years I can hardly imagine > what it would be like if I had to go back to not using them. > > Dave Salt > > SimpList(tm) - try it; you'll get it! > > http://www.mackinney.com/products/program-development/simplist.html > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
