On Sat, 5 May 2018 13:45:45 -0500, Mike Schwab wrote:

>IBM did a one test library addition for PDSE for COBOL 5
> 
Details (or citation)?  Is this a facility peculiar to COBOL?  PDSE only, or 
old-fashioned PDS?

>On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 10:01 AM, Dan D wrote:
>> A very long time ago (over 30 years ago) I worked for a service bureau.\
>> They had specific naming standards for their libraries when products were 
>> installed (ie. SYSx.product.V01R03.LOADLIB).
>>
>> We couldn't have our customers continually changing JCL unless they wanted a 
>> different version than what was installed so we created a system tool called 
>> "Virtual Dataset Names".
>>
>> This worked very similar to how ALIAS names works although there was no 
>> "must be in the same catalog" restriction.
>>
>> When the system was IPL'd (or later via a special operator command) a table 
>> was loaded into CSA that contained the REAL dataset name, the VIRTUAL name 
>> and the various versions that were available.  One of the versions was 
>> marked as the default.
>> We used the IGG026DU catalog front-end exit (which I believe is now used by 
>> DFSMSHSM) to intercept catalog lookups and replace the REAL name that is 
>> being located with the VIRTUAL name.  It would scan SWA and check if an 
>> ACCT= was specified on the EXEC statement.  If so, the 1st operand was used 
>> to overriding VERION for all datasets within that step.
>> Example:
>>      //step50 exec pgm=iefbr15,ACCT=V5R3
>>      //DD1    dd  dsn=sys1.sortlib,disp=shr
>> If SYS1.SORTLIB is in the table and it's virtual name is PROD.?.SORTLIB and 
>> it had a list of versions, V1R0 being the alias, DD1 would be translated to 
>> PROD.V5R3.SORTLIB as ACCT=V5R3 was specified.  If it wasn't DD1 would be 
>> PROD.V1R0.SORTLIB.
>>
>> Our customers loved this as they could test NEW versions of products before 
>> they became the default.
>>
>> If someone has the time, maybe they could take on this project and re-write 
>> this cool tool ;-)

-- gil

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