Re: IBM SSI Function Codes 16 and 17

See: https://github.com/CBTTape/290 It contains an implementation of subsystem datasets. The documentation you WANT is the Washington Systems Center Technical Bulletin GG66-3131-00, which, unfortunately, seems to have become Pure Unobtainium. -- Jerry

Re: casting with XL C\C++ compiler

> Anyway read the link and give the compiler a try! I have, and it works - very well! If you haven't tried this compiler, you should. There are some limitations, but if you like the 64-bit LE programming model, this compiler is a win. -- Jerry

Re: Dr. John Ehrman

I came across this in "The Archives" (aka "the huge pile of crap in my home office") and it brought back very fond memories of John. https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ksqfw4MzFSgfG5g97 -- Jerry -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff /

Re: COW for fork() is disappearing in z/OS 2.4

David Crayford says... > ...It would be fantastic to have bash as the default shell for z/OS but that > ain't gonna happen anytime soon :) FWIW: Here's how I tend to work on z/OS. * I leave my default login shell (in the OMVS segment) as /bin/sh. * I have my .profile/.bash_profile/.bashrc files

Re: COW for fork() is disappearing in z/OS 2.4

Kirk Wolf wrote: > Unfortunately, bash is pretty complicated software, and updating it to do > this is not at all easy because of the difference in semantics between > fork()/exec() and spawn(). Amen, brethren! :-) Interestingly, it looks like there is exactly ONE call to fork() in the bash

Re: COW for fork() is disappearing in z/OS 2.4

> The Percent29 at the end breaks the URL. Is your e-mail software doing that > automatically? I created the post directly from the listserv's web interface - no email software involved. I *did* have a closing paren at the end of the URL, since I was in the middle of a parenthesized phrase; it

COW for fork() is disappearing in z/OS 2.4

According to the "Summary of changes for z/OS UNIX System Services Planning for Version 2 Release 4 (V2R4)" (see https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLTBW_2.4.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r4.bpxb200/bpxb2soc24.htm), copy on write for fork() has been removed from z/OS. It will be interesting to

Re: USS script : how to test that a MVS Dataset exists ?

> So I cannot use the "tso" Unix command... Doh. Never mind. -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

Re: USS script : how to test that a MVS Dataset exists ?

(Another "too late" reply. That'll teach me to go on vacation.) This script illustrates how to do it, but I'm not sure it would work early in the IPL sequence (since it needs to run TSO commands): #!/bin/sh if /bin/tsocmd "listd '$1'" >/dev/null 2>/dev/null ; then echo "$1 exists" else

Re: getting a list of FMIDS and the product description

(A day late and a dollar short...) My nifty little USS SMP query tool can get you the necessary bits of information from the CSI, but there is Some Assembly Required to pull it together into a nice report (which I will not do here, but if I had to, would use some combination of sed and awk).

What's the intent of the "LOAD AND ZERO RIGHTMOST BYTE" instruction?

Is it Friday yet? The z13 (I think) added this puppy: = LOAD AND ZERO RIGHTMOST BYTE The second operand, with the rightmost byte set to zero, is placed at the first-operand location. For LZRF, the first and second operands are 32 bits, and for LZRG, the first and

Re: RFE to expand Unix path length for DYNALLOC beyond 255 characters

On Tue, 7 May 2019 14:24:26 -0500, Paul Gilmartin wrote: > At least support, for consistency: > > https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.3.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r3.bpxa400/pathname.htm > > ... A path name can be up to 1023 characters long, including > all directory names, file

RFE to expand Unix path length for DYNALLOC beyond 255 characters

I recently discovered that the maximum path length for dynamic allocation key 8017 (Unix PATH name) is 255 characters, in spite of the fact that the text unit length field is 16 bits. While most "human generated" path lengths will not be that long, software generated paths can easily exceed that.

Re: Newbie SMP/E questions

> The other option is to see if the ISPF environment has the ISPF SMP/E panels > available. If you are coming from a Unix background, are comfortable with the USS command line and scripting, and have the xlc compiler available (a lot of "ifs"...), you might want to try this:

Re: RFE for Posix semaphores

Timothy Sipples wrote: > Would it also make sense to ask for automatic release/cleanup of stale > semaphores? Someone could certainly ask for a z/OS-specific variation on the XSI API. That doesn't eliminate the need for a standards-conforming implementation of Posix semaphores. -- Jerry

Re: RFE for Posix semaphores

Stackoverflow offers a nice little comparison between XSI and Posix smaphores here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11058045/differences-between-semaphore-h-and-sys-sem-h Stevens & Rago, in "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment", section 15.8: http://www.apuebook.com/toc3e.html

Re: RFE for Posix semaphores

Timothy Sipples writes: > Does this article help? > https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-semaphore/index.html Nope. That's pretty much what I'm doing as a workaround. I want the real thing. -- Jerry -- For IBM-MAIN

RFE for Posix semaphores

See: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=viewRfe_ID=129007 AFAIK, z/OS only supports XSI semaphores, not Posix semaphores. It's possible to emulate Posix semaphores, but with restrictions and messiness. -- Jerry

Bring back the IBM Journal of R!

From another thread: > Many of these techniques have been documented in the IBM Journal of Research > and Development. > Unfortunately, a few years ago IBM decided to hide that behind a paywall. This has always seemed to me like a colossal marketing failure. There is just no better showcase

How can I list the contents of a ADRDSSU DUMP dataset?

I'd like to be able to list the names of the files present in a "logical dump" dataset produced by ADRDSSU. AFAIK, there isn't a command to ADRDSSU to do that (seems like an odd omission...). The format of the dump dataset is thoroughly described:

Re: How call BPXMTEXT from Posix STC

OK, a few clues. bpxmtext is, as others have pointed out, a rexx exec. In at least some cases it turns around and calls another rexx exec, edcmtext. That, in turn winds up looking at this module: CEE.SCEERUN(EDCEJR). That, finally, contains message text. The rexx is (to me, a non-rexx

Re: How call BPXMTEXT from Posix STC

> Based on advice on another thread I am now calling errno2() on certain > socket errors. I get back an integer that I dutifully display in hex: > > XXX0123I errno2 = x'12345678'. Look up using BPXMTEXT. > > That message kind of offends me. When I get a basic library error I use > strerror() to

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

On Sun, Sep 2, 2018, 9:56 AM Bruce Armstrong wrote: > If you know what ISPF is and are happy with it you may not be the > target market for Zowe. Zowe is primarily targeted for the "next gen" > sysprog who does not have 30+ years of learning the the nuances of > z/OS and ISPF. Or - maybe

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

Andrew Rowley wrote: On 31/08/2018 3:05 AM, Jerry Callen wrote: > Everyone has to follow the convention, and on z/OS they LARGELY do. (Emphasis added) I rest my case. :-) > Source control is not a better solution, it is a solution > to a slightly

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

> Question for y’all. I would like to do a diff on the modified file and > present the user with the changes. > They could REPLACE the file with the editor contents, MERGE them which would > be something they > would do after a review of the diff, ABANDON them or save them somewhere > else.

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

On Aug 29, 2018, at 8:20 PM, Andrew Rowley wrote: > > On 30/08/2018 12:16 AM, Jerry Callen wrote: >> The whole idea of holding a lock on a file while a human being slowly edits >> it is so 1960s. >> >> Since at least the mid 1970s, editors like emacs have l

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

The whole idea of holding a lock on a file while a human being slowly edits it is so 1960s. Since at least the mid 1970s, editors like emacs have loaded the file for editing and noted the timestamp. When the user attempts to save the file. the timestamp is checked again, and if it changed,

Re: Zowe for systems programmer ?

On Fri, 24 Aug 2018 07:20:24 -0500, Tom Marchant wrote: >> via the Zowe command line you can stay in the laptop context >> and Zowe will fetch a data set behind the scene, allow it to >> be edited by your favorite editor and save back to z/OS >> transparently. > Will it do so while providing

Re: Anyone here exprerienced in JSON parser (assembler)

So I can't help but wonder: what's the big picture here? WHY is it necessary to parse JSON from assembler? There is presumably a good reason that assembler is in the driver's seat here, instead of, say, C, C++, or Python (all viable languages on z/OS). Yes, it's certainly possible to write

Re: [EXTERNAL] Zowe install woes

NOTE: I'm not a Zowe developer, but I sit near some of them at Rocket and have some understanding of its structure via osmosis. :-) This should not be considered "authoritative." There are several pieces to Zowe: * A web client (code that runs in the browser: HTML, CSS and JavaScript). This

Re: Would SHARE kindly kick IBM in the ass for what the've done with their web content?

On Thu, 14 Jun 2018 11:27:47 -0500, Mike Schwab wrote: >Even if you have a z/OS 2.1 manual, some PTFs do add features or >command or document changes to older versions, and they only update >the newest manual. Sometimes it is best to get the newer manual then >check the document changes so you

Re: PDSEGEN - 2 years old

So, I'm curious: What are people actually USING member generations for? For source code, it seems like a decent source control system is a better bet. Are member generations primarily a form of "oops recovery?" -- Jerry --

Re: CONTROVERSY! z/OS UNIX: is it an enhancement or a tool of the Devil?

On Fri, 11 May 2018 10:46:20 -0400, Hobart Spitz wrote: >Second to that are the deficient string and file models: > > - There are separate techniques for processing text, on one hand, and > binary data on the other. (z/OS, z/VM have no such requirement.) > - Using the

Re: MF Application source control?

On Fri, 4 May 2018 13:00:55 +, Rob Scott wrote: Dave As someone who is a complete dinosaur and used to source control systems like SCLM, it took a bit of getting used to for me. I found that once I abandoned PDS datasets and used

Re: IRS - 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware (nextgov.com)

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 18:29:38 -0400, Hobart Spitz wrote: >That's said, I can answer the question, for C/C++, as follows. (I pose the >question for Java, below.) > >*With the *nix/C record and string models, there are these issues:* > > 1. Errant/unexpected/unintended pieces

Re: Any C++ regex template class gotchas?

On Mon, 9 Apr 2018 10:28:34 -0400, Charles Mills wrote: >To clarify, by "works" you mean does NOT ABEND? Oops, yes, I meant "does not ABEND". -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,

Re: Any C++ regex template class gotchas?

Works for me, using exactly the code posted, so it looks like something peculiar to your maintenance level. I'd open a PMR. make -k CHARSET=ebcdic xlC -Wc,phaseid -qebcdic -q64 -qnocse -qgonum -qbitfield=signed -qtarget=zosv2r2 -qarch=10 -qstrict \ -qfloat=ieee:nomaf -qlanglvl=extended0x -O2

Re: Waiting for IBM to step away from Laura Ingraham sponsorship

> Now that you have established you disapprove of the first and second > amendments, > which others do you have problems with? Why would you allow a high school > kids with > a Nazi salute and Nazi style armbands make policy? Well, that's about the shortest proof of Godwin's Law that I've ever

Re: GitHub setup for Z/os

There are detailed instructions on using the z/OS port of git with GitHub here: https://forum.rocketsoftware.com/t/using-git-for-z-os-with-github/654 -- Jerry -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,

Re: z/OS "interactive computing" - AKA TSO/ISPF or UNIX shell

> If you want a break with 3270, why a Rube Goldberg with line mode. Make the > application an X11 client instead. > > We'd all be better of if SUN's paradigm of the thin client (X11 server) had > caught on. Um, well, maybe. You CAN run X11 clients on z/OS. But my personal experience is that

Re: Can the CSI info alone produce a final list required for full resolution of researched PTFs?

>> Normally, the process of resolving all REQ/PREREQ/IFREQ requirements for >> given PTF(s) and collecting all missing items that prevent resolution, up to >> the point where APPLY CHECK suggests that actual APPLY could be successful >> could require several iterations. > I have used GROUPEXTEND

Re: z/OS "interactive computing" - AKA TSO/ISPF or UNIX shell

I'm going to be an EXTREME outlier here. Background: I learned computing on OS/360 thru MVS, first using cards, then TSO/ISPF. I jumped ship to Unix in the mid 80s and now I'm back on the mainframe, doing ports of open source software to z/OS (under USS) at Rocket Software. I am logged into

Re: Interesting - NODE for z/OS

You don't have to build from source; you can get a downloadable SDK: https://www.ibm.com/us-en/marketplace/sdk-nodejs-compiler-zos There is a DeveloperWorks forum for node.js on IBM platforms (including z/OS and Linux on Z):

Re: Dr. John Ehrman

I knew John from my involvement with SHARE assembler committee, and through work with IBM's Federal Systems Division in the 1980s. He was a true gentleman, always kind, very smart, and an absolute pleasure to work with. I was delighted to have been able to chat with him (for the first time in

Small SMP utility for USS (was "Include FMID, PTFID and APARID as eye catcher in each LMOD")

I've written a little Unix command that uses the SMP/E query API to dig information out of the CSI. The output is not especially human-friendly; it's intended for processing by scripts. You can get it from github: https://github.com/zorts/smpapi

Re: git, z/OS and COBOL

Regarding line numbering: git has the ability to run complementary "clean" and "smudge" filters to be used when moving source between the repo and the working directory; these might prove useful. See https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Attributes for more information. That

Re: Passings

(A day late & a dollar short; I just noticed this.) Dave (AKA "dammital" or "DBA") and I go WAY back; I met him as a freshman at Florida Technological University in 1972. He took me under his wing and mentored me, introducing me to APL (on an IBM 1130), formal language specification, compiler

USS PFS Interface - 136 byte save area?

I'm writing a Physical File System (PFS) for USS, and I've come across an oddity in the interface documentation. The "Environment for PFS Operations" section of z/OS UNIX System Services File System Interface Reference says that, on entry to VFS function routines, R13 is "Save area address, of

Re: git on z/OS

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:26:55 -0500, Paul Gilmartin wrote (regarding porting git to z/OS): >What would be the obstacles to building it in Enhanced ASCII mode? For a tool like git that has to straddle character encoding worlds, enhanced ASCII support (EAS) brings only

git on z/OS

[Prompted by mentions of git on another thread] Rocket is in the process of porting git to z/OS (on USS, of course). As others have noted, it's challenging, given the ASCII/EBCDIC issues. Nonetheless, we hope to have a public beta available by the end of the year; it will be announced on

Re: Real purpose of hipersocket

On Wed, 6 Jul 2016 09:48:37 -0500, Parwez Hamid wrote: >The other point to note about OSes when comparing SMC-D with HiperSockets, >SMC-D is only supported by z/OS whereas HiperSockets is supported by all OSes >that run on z Systems. Right. :-( I am eagerly

Re: Real purpose of hipersocket

Z/OS 2.2 also provides SMC-D, which I am eager to get a chance to play with. All the convenience and familiarity of sockets, but with most of the TCP/IP overhead stripped out (since the underlying transport layer is reliable). It should have significantly better performance and less CPU

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both

In the interest of full disclosure, the code is now available on github: https://github.com/zorts/pause_release As noted way back in my original posting, the code is unauthorized, uses only TCBs, and ping-pongs between two tasks. I'm running this code on a moderately loaded z13, native z/OS

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

Edward Jaffe wrote: > Stated as simply as I can: If the POST bit is already on, why call the > WAIT service in the first place? All it's gonna do is immediately return. Yes, that's clear. What always gets my knickers twisted is when you can RESET the ECB and be sure you don't lose an event. I

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

Edward Jaffe wrote: > And, in the absence of contention, WAIT/POST in professionally-developed > software becomes orders of magnitude faster since everyone knows to skip > the WAIT if the post bit is on and to attempt a "quick" POST of the ECB > (using CS) if the wait bit is off. I understand

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

...and here we go. The results differ somewhat from the previously posted results; I just ran these, and the machine is somewhat quieter than before. Clearly the "fast POST" trick is worthwhile - though it didn't make as much difference as I expected. Relative performance: total CPU ECB

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

Peter Relson wrote: >>I agree the reference materials _imply_ that WAIT/POST are deprecated >>and that Pause/Release/Transfer should be used when possible. >If you have a concrete reference, please provide it. WAIT/POST is in no >way deprecated. I wouldn't call it "deprecated", but this does

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

> And, in the absence of contention, WAIT/POST in professionally-developed > software becomes orders of magnitude faster since everyone knows to skip the > WAIT if the post bit is on and to attempt a "quick" POST of the ECB (using > CS) if the wait bit is off. And my timing code did just

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

Greg Dyck wrote: > No one every said that Pause/Release was faster or consumed the same > amount of CPU as WAIT/POST, or that they should be used as a universal > replacement for WAIT/POST. They should be used where they provide value. The reason I wrote the test is that the documentation is

Re: SUSPEND/RESUME is slower than WAIT/POST. PAUSE/RELEASE is slower than both.

(A very delayed follow-up on a thread from yesteryear...) tl;dr: In unauthorized code, ECBs are much faster than pause elements. I wrote a simple test program to compare the performance of WAIT/POST and pause elements. The program has two tasks and simply ping-pongs back and forth between them

How well does z/OS handle large, but sparse, memory objects?

The 64-bit address space available to memory objects opens up a whole range of algorithms that use lots of VIRTUAL memory, but relatively modest amounts of REAL memory. The data is "clumped" into a relatively small number of pages; it's not like sprinkling a few bytes all over the object, which

What was a 3314? (was: Whither VIO)

In the "Whither VIO" thread, J.O.Skip Robinson wrote: > In a previous life, we defined VIO (I believe) to device 3314 even though we > had none left on the floor That's a device type I've never heard of, and the Google knows not of. Could this be a typo for "2314"? -- Jerry

Whither VIO?

In a thread in a distant galaxy, J.O.Skip Robinson wrote: > ...be aware that some customers (like us) did away with VIO a long time ago. I've been away from MVS for a while. Did something better than VIO come along while I wasn't looking? Why would VIO have been vaporized? -- Jerry

Re: How expensive is AMODE switching?

Well, DUH! I'll look at the code and see if that's feasible. -- Jerry -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

Re: How expensive is AMODE switching?

There is a short segment of 31-bit code that is generated on the fly by another piece of software that I need to call. I don't control that piece of software, and I'm putting the results of that computation into an above-the-bar chunk of memory for later processing. No I/O. Since it sounds as

How expensive is AMODE switching?

Before I sit down and write a test program to time it, can anyone tell me how expensive the AMODE switching instructions are (SAM31/SAM64)? I have an AMODE-64 function that needs to execute a short segment of AMODE-31 code in a loop (I know this sounds wacky, but there is actually a reason why

Re: Callable service for DD check?

This is probably overkill, but a DYNALLOC "info" call can also do it, and can easily provide other useful information about the dataset at the same time (if you need to know more than just whether or not the DD is present). -- Jerry

Re: Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

Jack J. Woehr wrote: > Not sure how relevant that this is to mainframe programming, but years ago > when I designed and executed with a team of nine a data-heavy server in > Unix optimized for multiple cores, what we found was that reroutable queuing > of data from one simplistic processing

Re: Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

Charles Mills wrote: > I would assume there is some sort of a compiler/hardware architecture > liaison group within IBM. I would bet that if someone from that group were > to put together a SHARE presentation called "Write Machine Code Like a > Compiler -- How to Write the Fastest Code Possible

Re: Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

Back from Christmas break to a lot of responses - thanks to all. Summarizing the responses thus far: * Select and/or tune your algorithm first. Check. * Tuning for a specific machine is a bad idea because you'll have to retune for every new machine. Check. This code is sufficiently critical

Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

load/store performance hasn't turned out to be what I had hoped for. I may well be using the facility "the wrong way"; having detailed implementation information would sure help. -- Jerry Callen Rocket Software ---

Re: Is there a source for detailed, instruction-level performance info?

BTW - I applaud IBM's provision of the non-privileged ECAG instruction for obtaining cache characteristics. Here's the output of a little program I wrote to format the information it provides (on a Z13): level 0: private data: line size=256, set associativity=8, total size=128K instruction:

Re: AW: PL/I and optional parameters

> I have a PL/I subroutine call that has 297 optional parameters. That is the > function has a parameter list with up to 100 tuples of parameters. The first > tuple is required, and tuple 2 through 100 are optional. OK, I've been watching this thread with growing curiosity and I can't stand

Re: C lang. embedded HLASM latest z/OS 2.1

ized services, why not? It'll make the code more accessible by others, in many cases it's just as efficient, and - it's fun! -- Jerry Callen Rocket Software -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, s

Re: Setting up Sublime Text to edit PDS members

IBM Explorer for z/OS can edit pretty much any sequential file, either native z/OS or USS, but in the generic Eclipse editor. Eclipse is endlessly customizable, so there may well be language-sensitive editing modes floating around for it. I've made (feeble) efforts to get emacs to do it,

3380 was actually FBA?

In another thread, l...@garlic.com wrote: ... but then if MVS had FBA support wouldn't have needed to do 3380 as CKD (even tho inherently it was FBA underneath) ... I didn't know that. Was that the first (and/or last?) IBM SLED to be inherently FBA under the hood? Where were the smarts for