You're quite right, it's not supported but it's actually quite safe (in this case). It's our code that makes up both the STC and the script that it uses. I have a series of checks that we do during startup and I also made sure there won;t be any timing issues between tasks. Originally I had (briefly) considered changing things in the "other" tasks' CSCB, but decided that it was not as safe as just changing my own task, and there was less chance of messing things up, and it also turned out to be unnecessary.
Normally this isn't a problem if it's a batch job because you get a real step name as the ID and if it's a STC and they started us "correctly", we would already have a unique ID, but because we use IEFRDER, if they forget to use the ID at start time, we end up having z/OS use the unit address of the IEFRDER DD for the STC ID. I'm not sure who came up with that as a rule, but it's pretty odd. Most sites keep the scripts that are used by this DD in a PDS or PDS/e, so we can end up with several tasks, all normally with different task names, but all with the same STC ID, so when they try to modify the task, they can end up having them all with the same ID. They can get around it, but it's added complexity that, unfortunately, some operators (who are the biggest users of day to day automation) just don't understand. Now that we know where this stuff is, since we already know the names and ASID of the "other" automation tasks that might also be running, now we can check that we don't end up with even two of them using the same ID. If they are using valid (and unique) command "prefix" characters, then none of this matters anyway, but some sites just like to still use the old "modify taskname" (F STCID,command) method, and sometimes they don't write the scripts or start the tasks the way we would like them to. Now we can keep things orderly whether they read the manual or not. :) Brian ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
