>Is there a bit setting in the CVT or another control block structure
>that indicates the presence of DATA SPACE Services is available ?

Data space services have been available since MVS/ESA SP3.1.0. They need 
not be "checked for".
Bit CVTH3310 / CVTESA (the same bit)  which was introduced in that release 
will be on in all releases.

>it is suggested that the developer obtain an additional 4K Block
>when reserving Data Space storage. This is because some Systems 
>return an Origin address at 4096 and Not 0. 
>.
>In other words the processor does not support an Origin of 0.
>From a programming/coding perspective, can this be detected ?
>.
>How does the System indicate this to a programmer before the
>DSPSERV macro is issued ?

It is not a necessary conclusion that "some systems return an origin 
address at 4096" is analogous to "the processor does not support an origin 
of 0". Imagine a system option that said not to return origin 0 even if 
the processor supported it (this is an option we have considered). But it 
does happen that all supported processors do support an origin of 0; 
nevertheless a program generally should not rely on that.

The system does not provide any indication of whether page 0 would be 
returned (of course the returned "origin" will indicate if it was 
returned)

FWIW, use of HIDEZERO=YES on DSPSERV (introduced in z/OS 2.1) is highly 
recommended (you would then intentionally not use page 0 even when it is 
returned) in order better to detect program errors of using 
uninitialized-but-0 pointers. Prior to z/OS 2.1 there was an alternate 
technique to making things "blow up" on a reference to the 0 page.

A normal protocol (for example) to obtain a 2G data space is to request 
the maximum allowed number of pages, and accept either RC=0 or RC=4.

Peter Relson
z/OS Core Technology Design


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