Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:07:05 +, Schmitt, Michael wrote:

>You lost me when you say that rather than embrace the conventions, standards, 
>and features of the language I'm coding in (REXX), I should restrict it to the 
>limitations of other languages.
>
Did I say that?  I was trying to take a middle ground.

>The maxim is to assume that readers of your code are familiar with the 
>language you're coding in, and would expect your code to follow those 
>conventions. It would /defy/ their expectations to code otherwise.
>
Be sparse and elegant but not rococo.  I prefer:
'A' B
to (the equivalent):
'A ' || B
The latter seems to cater to the expectations of PL/I or some other language.

But I confess to an obsession with performance.  Function call/return is
costly, so I'll use:
PARSE VAR A . . X .
rather than (the sparser?):
X = SUBWORD( A, 3 )


>-Original Message-
>From: Paul Gilmartin
>Sent: Monday, April 22, 2024 8:56 PM
>To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>
>On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:59:47 +1000, Andrew Rowley  wrote:
>>...
>>To me, it is much clearer to be explicit, including the concatenation, e.g.
>>"DELETE " || foo
>>seems much clearer about exactly what is happening/expected, which are
>>variables and which are (expected to be) constant etc.
>>
>That overkill is apt to confuse a POSIX shell partisan who would
>see the blank as part of the command name and expect a
>failure such as:
>813 $ 'rm ' foo
>-bash: rm : command not found
>814 $
>
>The maxim is assume your readers have a moderate, not
>advanced, knowledge of the language and make little
>concession to conventions of other languages.  Don't:
>'DELETE' || ' ' || value( 'foo' )
>
>My stumbling block learning Shell was excessive familiarity
>with CMS, where command strings built by Rexx  are parsed
>again by SVC 202.  I tried to build command strings with sh
>to pass to a nonexistent subsequent parser.  I got better in
>a couple days.

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:59:47 +1000, Andrew Rowley  wrote:
>...
>To me, it is much clearer to be explicit, including the concatenation, e.g.
>"DELETE " || foo
>seems much clearer about exactly what is happening/expected, which are
>variables and which are (expected to be) constant etc.
> 
That overkill is apt to confuse a POSIX shell partisan who would
see the blank as part of the command name and expect a
failure such as:
813 $ 'rm ' foo
-bash: rm : command not found
814 $ 

The maxim is assume your readers have a moderate, not
advanced, knowledge of the language and make little
concession to conventions of other languages.  Don't:
'DELETE' || ' ' || value( 'foo' )

My stumbling block learning Shell was excessive familiarity
with CMS, where command strings built by Rexx  are parsed
again by SVC 202.  I tried to build command strings with sh
to pass to a nonexistent subsequent parser.  I got better in
a couple days.

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:59:21 +, Farley, Peter wrote:
>
>I have recently done some experiments with Rexx scripts stored in the z/OS 
>Unix file system encoded in ASCII and they will execute without a problem so 
>long as the starting script file is properly ...
>
FSVO "properly".  What does "say c2x( 'abcd' )" show?  Is it the same on
a real ASCII system?

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:59:21 +, Farley, Peter wrote:

>Practically speaking however, starting a Rexx script under one of the z/OS 
>Unix shell programs is pretty much the only way to get it done.  Although if 
>you use the BPXWUNIX() function from a TSO Rexx  script to start another Rexx 
>script stored in the z/OS Unix file system it might work.  I will have to try 
>that path out.
>

BPXWUNIX() runs a shell.


>I have recently done some experiments with Rexx scripts stored in the z/OS 
>Unix file system encoded in ASCII and they will execute without a problem so 
>long as the starting script file is properly tagged as ISO8859-1 text.  
>Untagged Rexx script files started from any z/OS Unix shell do have to be 
>encoded in EBCDIC though.
>
EBCDIC -- Who needs it!  suppose it's improperly tagged as ISO8859-1
text but writes UTF-8 strings to stdout?  Will they display nicely via ssh to
a UTF-8 desktop?

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 11:40:33 -0500, Jon Perryman wrote:
>
>I've never tried it but a shell should not be required to automatically 
>integrate REXX & UNIX as long as you start REXX using z/OS Unix facilities in 
>a Unix address space. Technically, shells are not required by Unix but I doubt 
>that it has been tested much for obscure requirements.
> 
From the ISPF command line I've run a '~'-aware exec that does
ADDRESS SYSCALL chdir  which changes the default
directory for 3.17, etc.

I suspect that spawn( <, ... ); would work likewise.
Available and default command environments TBD.

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Re: Rexx and DSFS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 15:00:18 +0100, Rupert Reynolds wrote:
>
>My Linux lapdog uses #!/bin/rexx as the first line
>
This works on both MVS and several desktops:
/*bin/mkdir -p .; exec rexx "$0" "$@" # REXX  Magic!  */

>... (and external functions
>must be saved with upper case filenames to be found from Rexx code)
>
Can't you quote the function name:
'Function'( args )  /* Ugh!  */
???

>In some environments (TSO via ddname SYSEXEC, is it?) the Rexx comment was
>not required.
>
Required in SYSPROC and OMVS; optional is SYSEXEC.

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Re: Rexx and DSFS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 06:50:15 -0500, Lionel B. Dyck  wrote:

>I ran a test and this is what I found - IT WORKS FINE
>
>/dsfs/txt/lbdyck/lionel.exec>dir whoson
>t IBM-1047T=on  -rwxrwxrwx   1 BPXROOT  OMVSGRP11367 Jan 31 15:14 
>whoson
>
Interesting: 

seems to imply that only members of RECFM=U PDS(E) are regarded as executable.
What were the MVS DCB attributes of the data set?

>/dsfs/txt/lbdyck/lionel.exec>./whoson
>Interactive Users on 1 Systems: TSO Users: 1 SSH Users: 2
>
>System:   CBT  Users: 3
>xxx x (ssh)
>LBDYCKLionel B. Dyck
>LBDYCKLionel B. Dyck (ssh)
>
>/dsfs/txt/lbdyck/lionel.exec>
>
Are there two different definitions of "executable"
which the publication fails to distinguish?

Could "chmod a-x" make the member mon-executable?

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Rexx and DSFS

[Paul Gilmartin]

Can a Rexx Rexx exec usefully reside in a  DSFS?  It would need to be
marked as executable.  The following doesn't make it clear:


Is there better information in the DSFS User's Guide?

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 23:02:56 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>Unclean! Did you report it as a bug?
> 
I suspect it's WAD (BAD!)
o LEAVE as the target of an assignment is a variable name.
o Otherwise, LEAVE as the first token of an instruction
  is a keywod (LEAVE NAME)
o Otherwise, LEAVE is a symbol which may be a variable name.

For performance, Rexx gives high priority to detecting assignments.

Alas, them's the rules.  What would you report as a bug?
>
>
>From: Paul Gilmartin 
>Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2024 11:50 AM
>
>Astonishment factor with such as "LEAVE = 'date'; LEAVE".  No
>Rexx syntax error, but unexpected result.

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 14:54:33 -0400, Bob Bridges wrote:

>Wait, what?  Are you saying TSO-REXX has LINEIN, CHAROUT and so on?
>
Not exactly: 

>...Although I do think EXECIO is nicely flexible.  Still, I find myself 
>looking up the syntax occasionally when doing something unusual.
>
>---
>-Original Message-
>From: Seymour J Metz
>Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2024 10:40
>
>Given that REXX in an OMVS environment supports ANSI stream I/O, why use 
>EXECIO?

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Re: REXX vs other languages

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 01:52:14 +1000, Robin Vowels wrote:o
>...
>One would not use as variable such common keywords as mentioned above.
>
>The real advantage is that one doesn't need to keep in mind
>all those uncommonly-used words that might be used as variable names,
> 
somewhat the opposite.  If the keywords are reserved, the processor will
inform the programmer of misuse.  A processor can have an "oracle" that
always correctly divines the programmer's intent, as PL/I does.  But
in a single Rexx program, the same symbol can be a variable in one
instruction but a keyword in the next, with no syntax error but
unexpected result.

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 15:19:40 +, Seymour J Metz  wrote:

>A few comments.
>
> 1. It's best to avoid names that a,e, or are similar to, keywords.
>
Astonishment factor with such as "LEAVE = 'date'; LEAVE".  No
Rexx syntax error, but unexpected result.

> 2. There is a decades-long argument about NOVALUE. I am in the camp that
>believes the default behavior to be too useful to give up; others believe
>that it is dangerous.
> 
I'm inconsistent.  I routinely use SIGNAL ON NOVALUE.  It reports most of
my typos.  I very rarely use "set -o no''unset".  The difference may be due
sh marking variables with '$'.

> 3. T e default environment for statements that are expressions is often an
>application rater than the operating system, e.g., ISPEXEC, IISREDIT, 
> XEDIT.
>That behavior is incredibly useful.
>
Water is wet.  I once found CMS ISPF to reauire "address isredit 'isredit 
'".
Otherwise the command went to ISPEXEC.

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 14:40:26 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>Given that REXX in an OMVS environment supports ANSI stream I/O, why use 
>EXECIO?
>
OMVS stream I/O doesn't support CKD /PO/PS data sets.

What about DSFS?

Does the DSFS User's Guide mention any restrictions with Rexx stream I/O?

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 23:58:18 -0500, Bruce Hewson wrote:
>
>I use "cnt" for my loop counters. I stopped using FORTRAN style single 
>character variable names when I started coding in REXX. 
>
I thought FORTRAN allowed six.

(Be careful how you pronounce that!)

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Re: Regular Expressions: DFSORT, ISPF: "$","^"

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 04:03:48 +, Sri Hari Kolusu wrote:
>...
>I know you are detail-attentive, so I would add it to the next pub refresh, 
>but it only goes into 3.1 (may be V2R5 but not sure).
>
>^
>The caret symbol matches the beginning the string.
>
>$
>The dollar symbol matches the end of the string.
>
Thanks.  That's better.  But rather than replicating the regex specification
foe each UNIX Command  and each utility, with errors propagating and
needing redundant corrections, it would be better if each had hyperlinks
to a single, thorough IBM specification comparable to the Open Group's

9. Regular Expressions

But, Conway's Law  ...

(In vain hope, I perused Appendix C of the Unix Command Ref.  SA23-2280-60
only to find two nearly identical copies of a woefully inadequate 
specification.)

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Re: REXX vs other languages -- EXECIO intuitiveness

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 23:58:18 -0400, Steve Thompson wrote:

>I concur about REXX EXECIO I/O is not exactly intuitive.
>
>REXX, first implemented in CMS used the CMS I/O utilities
>Over in TSO they created EXECIO which does not operate in the
>same way as does the CMS EXECIO. And it causes me headaches when
>I work on CMS for a year or two and then come back to TSO to have
>it NOT be have as it did in CMS. Especially the STEM variable and
>trying to write a record.
>
Note the fundamental difference in file specs:
CMS:  FN FT FM
Z/OS: DDNAME
... but I have written portable EXECs -- on z/OS
my  FileSpec variable is one word; on CMS three.

And, irritatingly, the syntax of ADDRESS MVS EXECIO
differs depending on whether the EXEC is started from
a UNIX or non-UNIX address space.

The lack of (VAR string is probably impelled by TSO
RECFM=F, which would have a trailing blank entanglement.

>And so after working in TSO for a year or so to go back to CMS --
>I need to learn and make use of PIPEs which is not supported over
>on TSO Most shops do not see the need to pay for TSO Pipes.
>Sigh.
>
Is TSO Pipes even marketed except, an obsolete version
bundled with BatchPipes?

>And so, with Windows I/O is different (still talking REXX), same
>problem with Linux. I/O is not handled the same for simple reads
>and writes from my perspective.
>
Files on desktop systems are largely character streams; on
mainframes, record oriented.  Beyond that, standard Rexx
stream I/O came late to CMS because developers economized
by using the available EXECIO.

>Never-the-Less, I really appreciate REXX over EXEC, EXEC2 and CLIST.
>
Which Rexx do you use on desktop systems?

BTW, is the Regina mailing list active?

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Re: Regular Expressions: DFSORT, ISPF: "$","^"

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 19:41:49 +, Farley, Peter wrote:

>For the ISPF case, I think the document writers think that they have covered 
>everything about the accepted regular expression syntax by stating up front on 
>that page:
>
>“ISPF uses the IBM® C regcomp() — Compile regular expression and regexec() — 
>Execute compiled regular expression functions to compile and execute a regular 
>expression . . .”
> 
If the list of syntactic rules is incomplete, they should be clearly
characterized as examples.

Also: 
A regular expression in a FIND, CHANGE, or EXCLUDE command allows
you to search for a string matching a basic or extended regular expression.

"basic or extended" -- it fails to indicate how the user can indicate whether
a basic or extended regular expression is intended.

>From:  Paul Gilmartin
>Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2024 10:47 AM
>
>Are these omissions intentional?

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 19:50:56 +0200, Rony G. Flatscher wrote:
>...
>There are *no* reserved words in Rexx like in many other languages. (This 
>alleviates one to have to 
>learn them by heart. But more importantly, should the language get additional 
>keywords over time 
>
I disagree.  Although it's context-sensitive.  But ITERATE and LEAVE are
keywords within DO loops, which may not be intuitively obvious.  Otherwise
they would be commands.  RETURN is generally a keyword.  And THEN
is a keyword in an IF.

>they would not break existing Rexx programs that happen to use them already, 
>unlike other 
>programming languages.)
>
Not true.  When I first learned Rexx, A='XYZ'B was legal.  Later, it became
a syntax error.

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 20:17:36 +, Robert Prins wrote:

>Try the two characters that are pretty much unique to REXX, "!" and "?"
>especially for small local loops.
> 
Ugh!  But I confess I've done likewise at times.

I tried to refresh my memory and observed that the Rexx Ref.,
SA32-0972-60, is woefully inconsistent in its use f "symbol":

In Chapter 2. REXX general concepts 9
Symbols:
Symbols are groups of characters, selected from the: ...

But in Appendix E. REXX symbol and hexadecimal code cross-reference
"Symbol" apparently means a single character.

Pubs oughta straighten that out.

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Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 11:08:03 -0400, Bob Bridges wrote:

>It was while I was coding in REXX that I tried abutting a variable named 'x' 
>with another string, and couldn't figure out why the program behaved as it 
>did.  Eventually figured out I had inadvertently created a hex constant.  
>Maybe as an overreaction, I have never since used one-character variable 
>names, always two or more.  (What do I use for loop counters?, you ask.  I use 
>'j' plus another letter; 'jr' for records, for example, 'jd' for days 
>whatever.  More obvious would have been 'i', but there are too many two-letter 
>reserved words even in REXX that start with 'i'.)
>
I like to use longer names with mnemonic value as control variables and,
if the body of the loop is more than a couple lines, cite the control
variable at the END so the interpreter verifies nesting.

Rexx is chaotic in context sensitivity of reserved words and in symbols'
being evaluated almost everywhere with exceptions for e.g. ADDRESS.

Variable precision arithmetic is a boon.  But there is no convenient
library of elementary functions, probably the reason for the lack of
elementary functions in Rexx.

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Regular Expressions: DFSORT, ISPF: "$","^"

[Paul Gilmartin]

The description of regular expressions for DFSORT:

mentions "$" to match the end of a string, but not "^" to match the beginning.

The description of regular expressions for ISPF:

mentions neither "^" nor "$".

Are these omissions intentional?

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Re: grep ascii files...

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 11:16:30 -0500, Grant Taylor wrote:

>On 4/18/24 11:03 AM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>> someone conversant with such languages has posted here that the spoken
>> convention is low-to-high order: "four and twenty blackbirds."
>
>Would you please clarify / confirm the example language?  "four and
>twenty blackbirds" sort of breaks my brain and I'd like to research and
>learn more.
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_and_Twenty_Blackbirds>

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Re: grep ascii files...

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 15:02:41 +, Farley, Peter wrote:

>Re: “When typing Hebrew or Arabic text on a 3270, does tne cursor move 
>right-to-left?”, I can testify that yes it does.  Quite remarkable when you 
>first see it, but then for numeric fields it moves left to right, just like 
>non-Arabic/Hebrew screens.  And while typing non-numeric characters, the 
>characters you already typed can change as you type other characters, 
>according to the language rules.
> 
someone conversant with such languages has posted here that the
spoken convention is low-to-high order: "four and twenty blackbirds."

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Re: grep ascii files...

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:24:02 -0500, Lionel B. Dyck wrote:

>Gil - no need to insult.
>
Understood.  I felt I that I was lighthearted, in the spirit of Kirk's
suggestion, after I checked that he did append a smiley to his
arrant pedantry.

More seriously, suppose the pattern isn't EBCDIC?  I'm
imagining Hebrew in UTF-8.  How do regular expessions
play with R-to-L text?

When typing Hebrew or Arabic text on a 3270, does tne
cursor move right-to-left?


>-Original Message-
>From: Paul Gilmartin
>Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2024 8:22 AM
>
>On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 07:36:15 -0500, Kirk Wolf wrote:
>
>>Behold the power of Unix pipelines:
>>
>>$ iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t IBM-1047  myasciifile | grep  MATCH
>>
>>iconv is not "first converting" the the whole file to EBCDIC since both 
>>iconv and grep run at the same time :-)
>> 
>OK, smartass.  How about "grep -r".

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Re: grep ascii files...

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 07:36:15 -0500, Kirk Wolf wrote:

>Behold the power of Unix pipelines:
>
>$ iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t IBM-1047  myasciifile | grep  MATCH
>
>iconv is not "first converting" the the whole file to EBCDIC since both iconv 
>and grep run at the same time :-)
> 
OK, smartass.  How about "grep -r".

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 16 Apr 2024 07:17:35 +1000, Wayne Bickerdike wrote:

>I guess when the utility was developed JCL was way simpler and test cases
>were limited.
>
>After Gil raised the various gotchas, I wrote myself a PUTPDS program with
>a user defined delimiter. Eschewing 2 bytes means I can come up with a very
>random string such as !@#$%^&*  ADD NAME=MEMBER. Not likely to be embedded
>in usual members.
>
>Now adding some bells and whistles. Not that I need it in retirement. Golf
>today.
>
Bravo!

Although I still favor off-the-shelf techniques such as
IEBCOPY and TRANSMIT.

Although those lack the flexibility of editable text
transport containers.

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 19:47:38 -0400, Steve Thompson wrote:

>JES3 is not retarded.
>
I may have judged hastily from such as that the OUTPUT JCL statement
came to JES2 before JES3.  You could pay extra to not get the feature.

>JES3 has this:
>//*DATASET parameters.
>
>//*ENDDATASET
> 
Those look like comments.  I guess it provides a sort of compatibility
in that JES2 will ignore them.  At the cost of making it harder to
detect and report typos.

Can the delimiter be changed to allow such lines within instream data?


>This is what the z/OS MVS JCL REF has for the parameters:
>   ...
>//*DATASET DDNAME=ddname[,parameter]...

>This allows one to put that data in-stream, define what DD will
>be using it. And then the JOB Step that gets it, the data is
>encapsulated better than JES2 does it.
>
I see little use in the feature.  But if I don't like it, or dln't
understand it, I don't have to use it.

>So I think this can handle the problem of "IEBUPDTE".
>
No.  The problem is not in JES[23], but in IEBUPDTE, which
has nothing like a DLM= parm which would allow data lines
resembling IEBU{DtE commands to appear instream.

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 18:06:01 +, Lennie Bradshaw wrote:

>Paul Gilmartin said,
>>> And no DLM is safe to use with instream XMIT output. <<
>
>True. However, for any given stream there is ahigh likelihood of finding a 2 
>char symbols that would work for that stream. I wrote a program to scan files 
>to find a suitable delimiter string to use some years back. I've lost it now 
>of course!
> 
Which doesn't address the problem of IEBUPDTE when a data record
begins with "./"/

Does anyone claim it's possible?

As for finding a delimiter for JCL, I'd SORT UNIQUE on columns 1-2;
inspect the median value.  If it's high, iterate using the top half;
if low, iterate using the bottom half.


>-Original Message-
>From:  Paul Gilmartin
>Sent: 14 April 2024 14:04
>
>On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 20:01:50 -0500, Mike Schwab wrote:
>
>>You nan set it up for a //SYSIN DD DATA,DLM='??' and add the
>>'??'
>>Card at the end.
>> 
>That's not enough.  If the input PDS contains a member with a line beginning 
>with "./", which is likely in JCL with instream data, IEBUPDTE will improperly 
>treat it as a command, not data.
>
>A similar problem arises if a data line begins with "??".
>
>And no DLM is safe to use with instream XMIT output.

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 11:48:02 -0400, Steve Thompson wrote:

>In a JES2 environment, DLM= can be up to and including 8
>characters (JES3 is limited to 2, not sure of JES3+).
>
Why is JES3 so retarded?  Useful features tend to be added to
JES2 earlier than JES3.

>In that case, what odds are there of coming up with a safe string?
> 
Almost certainty for any reasonable file size.  The interesting
question then is, "What's the most efficient way to discovedr
a safe string?"

However, IEBUPDTE has no sort of DLM option, so there's
no way to protect data lies beginning with with "./"  It's
puzzling that the IEBUPDTE designers never foresaw that
problem.  Consider, letting the Devil provide the test case:

/*Rexx
./ADD perverse comment  */
say 'Hello, World!'

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 09:35:00 -0400, David Spiegel  wrote:

>Hi Gil,
>Please see PDSLOAD (CBT File 093).
> 
This appears to be a companion to  OFFLOAD:


which says:
...  If the program detects IEBUPDTE control cards in the member of the 
PDS, the './' identifiers of the member records are altered to '><'.  

That relocates the problem without solving it for the case in which
a member contains both lines beginning with './' and both lines beginning
with ''><'. 

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 20:01:50 -0500, Mike Schwab wrote:

>You can set it up for a //SYSIN DD DATA,DLM='??' and add the
>'??'
>Card at the end.
> 
That's not enough.  If the input PDS contains a member with a line
beginning with "./", which is likely in JCL with instream data,
IEBUPDTE will improperly treat it as a command, not data.

A similar problem arises if a data line begins with "??".

And no DLM is safe to use with instream XMIT output.



>On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 6:52 PM Paul Gilmartin wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 08:34:30 +1000, Wayne Bickerdike wrote:
>>
>> >I have some REXX code that extracts all members of a PDS and writes it to a
>> >sequential file. Each member extracted is prefixed with the ./ADD card with
>> >the original member name. Handy for moving a PDS to another system.
>> >IEBUPDTE was the utility of choice when all we had was a card punch and
>> >card reader. (1975).
>> >
>> Have you just rediscovered IEBPTPCH?
>>
>> How does this work if your input PDS is a JCL library containing some
>> jobs with IEBUPDTE steps with instream commands?

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2024 08:34:30 +1000, Wayne Bickerdike wrote:

>I have some REXX code that extracts all members of a PDS and writes it to a
>sequential file. Each member extracted is prefixed with the ./ADD card with
>the original member name. Handy for moving a PDS to another system.
>IEBUPDTE was the utility of choice when all we had was a card punch and
>card reader. (1975).
> 
Have you just rediscovered IEBPTPCH?

How does this work if your input PDS is a JCL library containing some
jobs with IEBUPDTE steps with instream commands?

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Re: ./ ADD - which utility?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 13 Apr 2024 09:30:15 -0500,   wrote:

>Which utility do you use for control statement/input: 
>./ ADD 
> 
That question needs a lot of context;  perhaps an example.
What are you trying to do?

>A jcl for that would be nice too. 
>
Many people wish for some editing capability in the JCL Reader.

Lacking that, I have sometimes kept JCL as here-documents in
shell scripts, relying on shell variable substitution and command
substitution.  That was especially useful prior to the availability
of the SET and INCLUDE commands.

I never mastered file tailoring for JCL -- I had an alternative.

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Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: PASSPORT 3270 emulator (PC) problem w transferring files

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 17:59:26 +, Pommier, Rex  wrote:

>...
>Anyway, Microsoft ftp client doesn't support passive and zscaler only supports 
>passive.  Guess what quit talking?
>
The dual-socket FTP design, separating control and data, was recherché in
its time and now obsoleted by security practices.

Has any FTP implementation exploited the optimization offered by such as
,
connecting the socket via kernel to a file descriptor?

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Re: Not getting IBM-MAIN Email

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 23:08:54 -0400, David Mingee wrote:

>Hello All,  I magically started getting email from IBM-MAIN on Monday Apr 8.
>Thanks to all who offered help.
>
I have found the following informative:


Does LISTSERV periodically test with something such as that?

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Re: PASSPORT 3270 emulator (PC) problem w transferring files

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:39:11 +, Robert Prins wrote:
>
>You're probably paid a fair amount of dosh, ... And for ftp, FileZilla is free.
>
>
Provided the client:
o Allows FTP
o Allows shareware.

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Re: Program to split a jobs output

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 08:42:37 +, גדי בן אבי wrote:
>
>Today I had to sent a jobs output to IBM to help determine a problem.
>The jobs had 11 sysout datasets, and I wanted to send each one individually.
>
>Does anyone know of a program to do this automagically, before I see how 
>complicated it would be to write one?
>
Willl DSFS help with this?

WHr does the DSFS User's Guide say about this?

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Re: Program to split a jobs output

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 09:15:05 +, Rob Scott  wrote:

>I believe that Lionel Dyck has a simple SDSF REXX exec that does pretty much 
>what you require - it is called "SDSFXDD".
>
>It takes each SYSOUT dataset from a job and saves it as a member of a PDS.
>
I've done that, but targeting a UNIX hierarchy.

o Much richer name space.  I can use qualifier such as:
  jobname/jobid/stepname/procstepname/ddname/spoolID.

o Copies SYSINs also.

o I am not constrained to a single RECFM.

IEBGENER copies attributes of DD allocated by SDSF.

But I must guess at FILE DATA() based on DDNAME
overriding SYSUT1.

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Re: FTP translate table defaults

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 13:32:46 -0400, Phil Smith IIIwrote:
>...
>I don't have a solid answer other than that file tagging seems to matter, so 
>chtag is your friend.
> .
Does the FTP server have such as a SITE CHTAG command?

Will FTP automatically tag a file to the value in SBDATACONN?

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Re: [ISPF-L] Edit Copy anomaly ?

[Paul Gilmartin]

(I'll try to cross-post this.)
On 4/4/24 10:49:48, lbd...@gmail.com wrote:


Found another way to do it

 From my home directory via the shell entered: */cp script 
/dsfs/txt/hlq.pds/script/*

And then checked and it copied just fine – kudos to the */dsfs/* team.
 .

A pleasant surprise.

Is this behavior clearly documented in the DSFS User's Guide?

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Re: Attributes of an assemler symbol

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 13:38:22 +, Seymour J Metz  wrote:

>The obvious answer, which, alas, isn't supported, would be the N' attribute. 
>RFE?
> 
Idea?

This belongs on ASSEMBLER-LIST.

Does it matter that the values in a symbol can vary between repetitions?  E.g.:
TABLE  DC  256AL1(*-TABLE)

>
>From: I Binyamin Dissen
>Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2024 4:53 AM
>
>   FOO   DS   10CL5
>
>which attribute / macro function extracts the repetition count - 10
>
>I assuee that it must exist but I am not finding it.

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Re: Slow FTP's

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:26:46 +, Jousma, David wrote:

>Ding ding ding…..Gil gets the prize!...
>
>Coding EBCDIC, and STRU R was the magic potion.
> 
And no one knows why.

FTP appears designed to ignore conventions and frustrate programmers.\
Once I coded:
//SYSUT1  DD  RECFM=U,...
...
PUT DD:SYSUT1 ...

expecting FTP to behave like IEBGENER or any well-behaved utility,
treat each block as an unformatted record, and transfer RDWs and BDWs
as data.  Instead, it appeared to ignore my allocation attributes and use
those in the DSCB instead.

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Re: Slow FTP's

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 28 Mar 2024 14:41:32 +, rpinion865 wrote:

>As you have determined, it seems that MODE B (Block Mode) is the kicker.  
>Using XMIT or TERSE would eliminate the need for MODE B.  But we all know 
>there is CPU consumption from using those two utilities on both ends. 
>
Might STRU R be preferable to MODE B?

(But O discovered that STRU R garbles RECFM=VBS.)

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Re: DSFS IBM Idea - Please consider voting

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 26 Mar 2024 13:48:56 -0500, Lionel B. Dyck  wrote:

>Please consider voting on my new IBM Idea for /dsfs
>https://ibm-z-hardware-and-operating-systems.ideas.ibm.com/ideas/ZOS-I-4024
>- this is requesting that dsfs have access to input datasets in the spool
>along with the currently supported output datasets.
>
> 
I'm curious:  How does "tail -f" behave on a DSFS SYSOUT while  it is
actively being updated by a batch job?  Is it comparable to SDSF with
auto refresh?

Are there any restrictions that should be mentioned in the User's Guide?

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Re: FTP SBDATACONN - how to display?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:39:22 +0100, Radoslaw Skorupka wrote:
>>>
>> what does [QUOTE [SITE]] STAT tell you?
>
>The output is long, but it does not contain translation details.
>However it shows "ENcoding is set to SBCS".
> 
Feels like an invitation to an Idea.

>Note, SITE STAT (SBD   or SITE STAT (ENCODING are not helpful also.

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Re: FTP SBDATACONN - how to display?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 24 Mar 2024 21:46:37 +0100, Radoslaw Skorupka wrote:

>How to display current settings of SBDATACONN?
>I mean translation details.
>The server is running on z/OS, the client is Windows or Linux (text
>mode, no GUI clients).
> 
what does [QUOTE [SITE]] STAT tell you?

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Re: How to unzip my Rocket MAKE 4.3 file

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2024 15:45:28 +, Pommier, Rex wrote:

>I *think* pax will explode a zip file.  
> 
I have used "jar" to explode a zip file.

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Re: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 23:24:38 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>CALL ON or SIGNAL ON?
> 
???
CALL ON to a procedure coded in front of the main loop and drop
through without RETURN?  That would make things worse.

He would have wanted ITERATE ON.

>
>From:  Paul Gilmartin 
>Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 5:38 PM
>On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:36:12 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:
>
>>"unwinds" in a very disruptive and partial fashion.  I once debugged a naive 
>>co-workers
>program which handled an exception in a subroutine by SIGNAL to top of main 
>loop.
>Worked fine in a modest test data set.  Overflowed CALL/RETURN stack on a 
>larger
>data set.

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Re: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:36:12 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>The SIGNAL statement unwinds the stack in a very disruptive fashion; its 
>behavior is unlike GOTO in any language that I am familiar with. Use it for 
>anything but exception handling at your peril.
>
>"unwinds" in a very disruptive and partial fashion.  I once debugged a naive 
>co-workers
program which handled an exception in a subroutine by SIGNAL to top of main 
loop.
Worked fine in a modest test data set.  Overflowed CALL/RETURN stack on a larger
data set.

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Re: Rexx numeric digits and scientific notation question

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2024 12:29:16 -0500, Charles Mills  wrote:
>
>(Why do I care? I am subsequently going to add a relatively small number to 
>the product and don't want to lose low-order digits.)
> 
Set DIGITS to (FSVO) enough.

>I tried using FORMAT but unless I use it in every subsequent calculation Rexx 
>goes back to scientific notation and I lose low order digits.
> 
Then use FORMAT() (only) to format output for display;

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Re: BASE64 Decode / EPOCH Conversion Code Samples

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 10 Mar 2024 02:11:50 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>HLASM.
> 
I understand that on Linux HLASM translates ASCII source to EBCDIC on
input and assembles that.

Has anyone written a HLASM base64  decoder that works on both ASCII
and EBCDIC?

Conditional assembly?

Dual path?

Translation on input?

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Re: BASE64 Decode / EPOCH Conversion Code Samples

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 19:47:13 +0200, Binyamin Dissen wrote:
>
>Actually not, as the base64 document survives character conversion.
> 
I agree there's no loss of information.

>An assembler routine running using EBCDIC will provide the same result (with
>EBCDIC) as the routine running using ASCII with ASCII, i.e., 'A' translates to
>the same binary code on both systems.
>
What assembler runs on both ASCII and EBCDIC systems?

There's an ambiguity.  If you don't know whether your base64 is represented
in ASCII or EBCDIC, suppose it contains the character at code point x'4E'.
You don't know whether that's an EBCDIC '+' or ASCII 'N'.  It matters.

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Re: BASE64 Decode / EPOCH Conversion Code Samples

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 08:46:01 -0600, Joel C. Ewing wrote:
>...
>If you really want the BASE64 encoding to be in EBCDIC characters,  and
>also a conversion of a binary value to be interpreted and displayed in
>EBCDIC, I would think it much more useful to keep these as  two
>independent routines.
>
If it were coded in a HLL as a 64-branch SWITCH statement, it would
work alike on an ASCII platform with ASCII encoded input and on an
EBCDIC platform with EBCDIC encoded input, producing identical
binary output for both.

An outboard ICONV filter  might be useful.


>>> On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 06:11:01 + Frank Bonaduce wrote:
>>>
>>> :>Hello Folks. Is anyone aware of where one might locate any sample 
>>> assembler code, macros or APIs to perform the following:
>>> :>- Base64 Decoding (to EBCDIC)- EPOCH Conversion
>>> :>Thanks in advance for the assistance.� �Frank.

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Re: BASE64 Decode / EPOCH Conversion Code Samples

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 09:59:02 +0200, Binyamin Dissen wrote:

>Base64 has nothing to do with EBCDIC.
>
???

>It is a means of converting binary data to commonly printable characters
>(typically A-Z a-z 0-9 + /)  that can then be shipped in a non-binary manner.
>
To an assembler program it is almost certain to matter whether "A-Z a-z 0-9 + /"
are in ASCII or EBCDIC representation.


>A simple duck-duck-go search will show examples. My first C program was a base
>64 converter.
> 
>On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 06:11:01 + Frank Bonaduce wrote:
>
>:>Hello Folks. Is anyone aware of where one might locate any sample assembler 
>code, macros or APIs to perform the following:
>:>- Base64 Decoding (to EBCDIC)- EPOCH Conversion
>:>Thanks in advance for the assistance.� �Frank.

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Re: TELNET PROFILE, strictly PDS?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 4 Mar 2024 13:29:59 +, roscoe5 wrote:

>I could not find definitive doc saying a PDS/E was/wasn’t allowed, but I am 
>convinced it is. Thanks.
>
In days of yore there were only PDSs  Nowadays there are PDS, PDSE1, PDSE2,
and UNIX directories with some similarities and many differences listed in:


Must  it be the responsibility of every facility to enumerate its capabilities? 
 With
great power comes great responsibility.

Long ago, I learned that UNIX directories were handled well by HLASM after
IBM fixed a couple of my APARs.  Poorly if at all as Rexx SYSEXEC, with
no documented restriction.

Will a future PDSE3 change more rules?

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Re: 35th International Rexx Symposium in Birsbane (Australia) about to start

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2024 20:41:04 -0600, Mike Schwab wrote:

>https://www.rexx.org/
>Last Release Aug 2022.
> 
Thanks.  But wandering around to the mailing lists at:
,
the last post to "announce" was Feb. 2005, and "users"
has only a couple posts per year.  It's too quiet.

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Re: 35th International Rexx Symposium in Birsbane (Australia) about to start

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2024 09:44:54 +1100, ronyF wrote:
>
>The link to further symposium information including the schedule can be
>found at , just click the box on the upper
>...
(drifting) That page links to the Regina page at:
  which invites a subscription at:
Support
A mailing list exists for the announcement and discussion of Regina
related matters.  To subscribe to this mailing list, send an email
message to the list server  with
the first line of the body of the message containing:
subscribe regina-l 

... but that fails with:
550: 5.1.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable

Is the Regina list still active?

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 16:46:00 -0600, Jon Perryman wrote:

>On Sat, 24 Feb 2024 19:50:32 +, Jim Mulder wrote:
>
>>STCK, which inserts a processor related value in the low order bits to meet 
>>the "unique with a partition" requirement. 
> 
You (carefully) avoided making any representation about multiple partitions.

And a "processor related value" can guarantee uniqueness but not monotonicity:
Suppose a processor with a higher value does STCK.  On detecting this, a
processor with a lower value does its own STCK before the clock changes.
Clearly the value stored later and differing only in the "processor related 
value"
will be algebraically  less.

The PoOps guarantees no such inconsistency will be detectable.
"detectable" is a  tricky word.  Schrödinger's cat comes to mind: if
you can't see it, you can't say it happened.

What's the fastest way one processor can signal the other?  Spinning
on a storage content?  Then a cache fault might provide sufficient
delay to guarantee consistency.

>If there's not a simple answer, I'll take your word this is monotonic, Out of 
>curiosity, what is the precision of STCK and how does it guarantee monotonic 
>time? In other words, how does STCK distinguish between 10 STCK's on the same 
>CPU in the same partition within 49 microseconds? Multiply 244 picoseconds 
>(TOD bit 63) by 200 CPU IDs, STCK precision is 49 microseconds. With a 5Ghz 
>Telum processor, single cycle instructions take 191 picoseconds which means a 
>single CPU can potentially execute 256 instructions during that 49 microsecond 
>timeframe.

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Re: SDWAEC1

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 13:48:18 -0600, Jon Perryman wrote:
>
>Joseph, you missed Peter's point. Clearly you don't understand this is not 
>about "seems like". By ignoring several clarification requests, you caused 
>lots of confusing posts because you forced false speculation that would have 
>been avoided by the clarifications.  ...
>
I have never known Joseph to supply actual code samples when
invited, even urged, to do so.  I can readily suspect that terms
of his employment preclude that for reasons such as work product
or confidentiality.

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Re: Program Alias Names

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:58:42 +1100, Peter Morrison wrote:
>
>The MVS (et al) Binder and program objects have been around for over 30
>years.
>
>It is possible to have aliases for program objects (stored in a PDSE) that
>are longer than 8 characters.
>
>However, I have not found any facilities to (1) bringing thus-named things
>into storage and (2) list them.
>
I suspect they support C++, which generates long names.

How do they appear in a DSFS?

Are they case-sensitive in a DSFS?

Can they be created in a DSFS by the shell "ln" command?

Where's the User's Guide for DSFS?

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Re: Program Alias Names

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:58:42 +1100, Peter Morrison  wrote:
>
>Have I missed something or is it not possible to bring into storage longer
>than 8-byte aliases from a PDSE? I would love someone to point me to other
>facilities that I am not aware of.
> 
Can a JUIX external link reference a long name?

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Re: DD SYMLIST?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:45:18 +1000, Peter Vels  wrote:

>https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/3.1.0?topic=statement-symlist-parameter
>
I'm  looking at Page 263 of  SA23-1385-60
z/OS 3.1 MVS JCL Reference
with the page heading DD: SYMLIST

>On Thu, 22 Feb 2024 at 12:46, Paul Gilmartin  wrote:
>
>> What does the SYMLIST parameter of the JCL DD statement do?

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DD SYMLIST?

[Paul Gilmartin]

What does the SYMLIST parameter of the JCL DD statement do?

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Re: SMP Packaging a PTF module replacement.

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:32:26 -0600, Joe DeChirico wrote:

>
>Thanks for all the responses, it appears that there was garbage in included 
>module, once I removed if from inline and used a ++MOD(VSHMNTSK) 
>TXLIB(ZPROTOBJ) . the problem went away.
>
I'm surprised that makes a difference?

How did you build the JCL with instream  ++MOD?  Could the
binary data have been corrupted by that process?

Does RECEIVE verify instream  ++MOD elements?

What were the messages in the failing case?

//SMPPTFIN DD DATA,DLM=@@   
 

the DLM=@@ should have no effect with your data.

What happens if you include the binary by concatenation
rather than instream?

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Re: SMP Packaging a PTF module replacement.

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:07:24 +, Chalk, Shelia  wrote:

>Get rid of the numbers on the right hand side.
>
Why?  Those are almost standard..

>...  Then resubmit.  What error message are you getting?
>
Yes.

I prefer to rely on DDDEFs rather than DD in the JCL.

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:39:21 +, Farley, Peter wrote:

>Thank you very much Frank.  I will try this out on my system.
>
>Would that such clear examples were available from IBM.
> 
But beware of relying on examples in lieu of documentation.

I once went to SR with a problem (I supplied the failing example) Rexx:
ADDRESS ATTCHMVS ASMA90

Tier 1 rejected, saying the manual contained no such example.

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 21:54:56 -0600, Charles Mills wrote:

>... your program or some other unrelated program -- has recently issued an 
> STCK and your program must spin, consuming CPU cycles, until a unique STCK  
> ...
>
>OTOH, if you do need a monotonic value, then you should redesign and recode to 
>use STCKE. 
>
STCKE is faster than STCK because its granularity if finer and
doesn't need to spin as long.

How many instructions could have been issued during such a
(microcode) STCKE spin?

I know, it's model dependent.

And  a mischievous programmer could contrive to line up all the
CPUs abreast and issue STCKE simultaneously to exhibit the
worst case.

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:16:11 +0800, David Crayford wrote:

>There is no z/OS UNIX callable service. ...
> 
Remember fondly days of yore when mainframe partisans,
such as one I worked with, boasted that all call interfaces,
including EXEC PGM= by the initiator were identical?

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Re: zsh for z/OS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:32:07 -0500, Rick Troth wrote:
>
>Talk to me, Gil. Where'd you get that? Brew? Who's behind that
>particular build? (I mean, did they put their names on it? Did they
>provide contact info?)
>
It might be here: .

I doubt they do z/OS.

Are z/OS ports generally merged into mainstream, multipath as needed?

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Re: zsh for z/OS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:09:57 -0500, Rick Troth wrote:
>
>I say you've found a BASH bug.
>I can IMAGINE how/why BASH is failing on external links, but it doesn't
>matter. The point is: IT FAILS and it should not.
>Great catch!
> 
Is it possible that zsh properly uses a POSIX function not supported by
the external link implementation?  If so, the bug is in external link, not
in zsh.

What immediately comes to my mind is realpath(), because I've used it
recently, it might not resolve external links to paths, and the command
Ref. mentions realpath() only under zsh.

The realpath() in the z⧸OS XL C⧸C++ Runtime Library Reference is not
POSIX compliant by not accepting NULL as the *resolved_name.

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Re: zsh for z/OS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 19:31:11 +, Pew, Curtis G wrote:
>
>If you’re still seeing bash on a Mac that probably means you started using it 
>before the switch. It’s been a while, but when they switched the default I had 
>to do something (probably in Terminal) to get it to switch for me. (It used to 
>prompt you to switch if you opened with a bash shell.) There’s still bash 
>available on MacOS, but it’s a rather old version, 3.2.57 while the current 
>stable release is 5.2.21.
> 
1377 $ bash --version
GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin21.6.0)
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later 

This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
1378 $ 

But I have it from a package manager,not from Apple.

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 21:50:07 -0600, Peter Farley wrote:
>
>There is an entire sub-section in the PoOps in the Control chapter 
>(SA22-7832-13, pp. 4-51 et al., starting most of the way down the second 
>column of that page) about the monotonicity guarantees for STCK{E/F}, even on 
>multiple CPU's.  I commend it to your reading.
>
Without trying to read every word, I trust them when they say,
• The values stored by any of the following sequence of
  instructions always correctly imply the sequence of
  execution of these instructions by one or more CPUs for
  all cases where the sequence can be discovered by the program:

>... independent of the language of the calling routine.  ...
>
LISP?

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Re: Nanosecond resolution timestamps for HLL's?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 18:22:53 -0600, Peter Farley wrote:
>
>The only HLL-callable function already provided in z/OS that I can find that 
>provides anything near that resolution is the LE Callable Services function 
>CEEGMT, but two calls to that service from a COBOL program in a row separated 
>by only a few calculations and a DISPLAY to SYSOUT produce identical values.  
>This is not good enough for high-volume processing needs.  Every request for a 
>time value needs to generate a new higher value.
>
What guarantees uniqueness other than STCT(E)?  Does the Sysplex Timer/ETR 
guarantee
uniqueness across the plex?

And monotonicity is a harsher constraint.  In the Bad Old Days when each CPU 
had its own
TOD and uniqueness was achieved by putting the CPU ID in the TOD programmable 
field
I wondered hereabouts whether a later transaction on a lower CPU could get lower
timestamp than an earlier transaction on a higher CPU.

And even if a service such as STCKE returns unique values, conversion to 
displayable
nanoseconds can result in duplicates.

You need a serialized service common to all participating processes that 
returns unique
values in a specified format.  Performance may suffer.

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Re: zsh for z/OS

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 08:04:44 -0800, Ed Jaffe wrote:

>...
>Issue the 'echo $0' command.
> 
Also probably important:
o What shell does "system()" use?  Is it POSIX compliant?
o What shell does system startup uxe?  Some Linux use dash for performance.

What are the benefits of zsh?  Are there incompatibilities?

I largely stay with POSIX shell for portability of scripts and skills.

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Re: Query - do you have access to GitHub from your z/OS system? And do you have git on your z/OS system?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:09:04 +, Rob Scott  wrote:

>We use git on z/OS extensively throughout the company and it is one of those 
>tools where you end up thinking "how on earth did I function effectively 
>without it?".
> 
ISPF/LMF?

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Re: Insecure security - was SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 01:55:26 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>The combination of a non-display entry field and blocking paste is devasting 
>to those with awkward keyboards or coordination issues.
>
My eyesight is bad enough that I rely heavily on spellcheck, copy/paste and 
audio I/O.

Disability rights activist organizations should take up the cause.

How does employment ADA handle this?

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Re: Insecure security - was SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:28:53 -0500, Tony Harminc wrote:
>
>But I've encountered sites that prohibit OS desktop Paste into password
>> field.
>
>Plenty of those. And some that allow a paste into the email field, but not
>into the "verify email" field. That one just reinforces the feeling that
>the designers of web sites don't really understand how much of anything
>works.
> 
They're trusting me not to make the same mistake twice.  See Emerson on
consistency.

Mostly it prevents my copy-pasting from my Contacts.

Keyloggers.

USB drives that spoof keyboards.

Facial recognition.  Fingerprint recognition. Voice recognition.  How few
years until my holographic twin walks into Radoslaw's bank!?



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Re: Insecure security - was SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2024 21:18:28 +0100, Radoslaw Skorupka wrote:
>
>Regarding passwords - IMHO private notebook/organizer is much better
>than saving passwords in web browser (do you remember password
>stealers?) or other "nice and automatic" methods. Even IT illiterates
>know how to protect paper organizer. And they know ways to obfuscate the
>notes.
>Last, but not least: no hacker know method to read paper notebook. And
>most people are not subject of interest of KGB or other three letter
>agency.
> 
It's not " know method" but physical access. Hide the paper notebook under
your mattress.  For complex passwords,OCR or Q-R code might be an option.
But I've encountered sites that prohibit OS desktop Paste into password field.

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Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Reading a scratch tape

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2024 13:44:16 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:

>EXEC2 didn't exist in 1971.
>
But later, could EXEC2 read a PDSE?

>
>From:  Seymour J Metz 
>Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 8:09 PM
>
>I would assume that it's difficult or impossible with PDSE, but that there is 
>less need in PDSE2, due to generations.

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Re: Banks migrate from mainframes to AI-driven cloud tech

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 10 Feb 2024 19:56:06 -0500, Phil Smith III wrote:
>   ... about IBM zSystems than other platforms these days either, alas.
>
This discussion is driven by a mixture of technical expertise and sentiment.

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Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Reading a scratch tape

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 8 Feb 2024 22:41:03 +, Pommier, Rex wrote:
>
>Actually, it does make sense (at least to me) to have this threshold set.  
>We've gone back more than once to rescue a developer or support person who 
>inadvertently scratched a tape the day before and we were able to recover it 
>for them by using this "expired but not really" feature...>
>
I believe PDS86 has a similar ability to recover deleted PDS members.

Does this work for PDSE?  I suspect it's harder.  Is that used as an argument 
against
migrating from PDS to PDSE?

That's what generations are for.

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Re: Reading a scratch tape

[Paul Gilmartin]

rpomm...@sfgmembers.com> wrote:

>In the "scratch category" settings, you can set an "expire hold" field that 
>tells the TS77xx how long to keep an expired tape before releasing it to 
>scratch.  I believe that once that threshold is crossed, the TS77xx rewrites 
>the tape mark to the beginning of the tape and all data is lost - unless IBM 
>has some magic they can preform on the back end.
>
"Expired" but not really!?  This makes as little sense as expecting to read a
temporary data set in a subsequent job.

With a physical tape one might EXCP, bypass errors, and recover some data.

But when my employer was designing a product, we learned that some users
expect the scratch pool to be managed FIFO.  I was astonished.

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Re: Reading a scratch tape

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 20:34:14 +0800, Brian Fraser wrote:

>TS7700 wont read a tape in scratch category,
>I don't know about Control-M, but in CA1 there is a utility called CTSSYNC
>to "protect" a scratch tape by altering the cat code back to non-scratch.
>
Assuming it hasn't been overwritten. 

Is ownership enforced?  Is there a security exposure?

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Re: Generate a data set with record numbers?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2024 16:18:16 -0600, Michael Schmitt wrote:

>Reason I never knew you could have a sequential SYSEXEC is I'm on z/OS 2.4. 
>This capability is added in z/OS 2.5.
>
It has long been possible according to lore.  A resourceful programmer
looked at the control block description where was documented that if
the member was 8x'00' SYSEXEC was treated as sequential and tried
forcing that in JCL.  IBM learned that programmers were doing that and
finally documented it.

>On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:25:47 +, Schmitt, Michael wrote:
>
September?  Delayed reaction!?

>>Huh. I always thought that SYSEXEC had to be a library.
>>
>>I suppose a sequential SYSEXEC only works for IRXJCL, not IKJEFT01.
>
Only because TSO syntax regards 8x'00' as an invalid member name,
but the JCL reader never bothered to check.  What about other
unconventional member names that might be created with Assembler
STOW?

>...And that if SYSEXEC is sequential, the exec shouldn't call other execs.
>>
They could reside in SYSPROC.

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Re: SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Mon, 5 Feb 2024 11:02:07 +, Rob Scott wrote:
>...
>As to "why don't you just fix it ?"tstyle questions, we have to consider quite 
>a few compatibility issues across n-2 releases especially when the "fix" 
>requires changes to configuration and security ...
>
Such as users' embedding cryptographic keys in commands?  Ugh!

UNIX arose in a more innocent age when no one worried much about such as:
ls -lt /u

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Re: SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 21:47:56 -0600, Mark Zelden wrote:
>
>Agree to disagree.  I haven't checked the doc and maybe it isn't documented 
>that that field or
>any field is limited to 40 characters, but it is not a bug to be fixed.  It 
>could be enhanced
>in the service stream, but it is most definitely not a defect.   Someone else 
>already
>stated that D OMVS,A=ALL (or something similar) didn't show the entire command.
>Restriction on the display output... not a defect. 
> 
I shall disagree.  For example, suppose there were an option to display
a data set name in that 4-character field.  Some names, probably a
minority, would be truncated.  But if the user enlarged that field, names
were still truncated to 40 characters then padded with blanks, I could
consider that only a defect, not a candidate for RFE.

An earlier ply  pointed a finger at an underlying service.  If so, the SR
should be transferred to that service.

There are multiple ways it could have been done right:
o The caller could provide a variable-length reply buffer.
o The service could return a pointer to a string.

Error handling is left as an exercise for the student.

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Re: SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 16:20:54 +, Rob Scott wrote:

>The desire to avoid dubbing was purely down to requiring an OMVS segment for 
>the SDSF user.
> 
Hadn't there long been default UID, and later automatic unique UID?  But those 
might have
wisely been defined lacking privileges needed by SDSF.

Our site had earlier had widespread Solaris, and our admin replicated
the Solaris UIDs.  Perhaps even, "Request a Solaris ID and we'll copy it."
One brave user NFS mounted his Solaris home directory for ~.

>Of course, in today's environment decades later,  this seems a rather quaint 
>reluctance as you can't do much on z/OS without one.
>
Still, fixing a defect in SDSF shouldn't require RFE.  WAD is insufficient 
excuse.

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Re: SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 09:24:07 +, Rob Scott  wrote:

>... When the PS command was originally written OMVS segments were not 
> commonplace and the design goal was to provide the data without being dubbed  
> ...
>
What is the penalty associated with dubbing?

Would it be possible or even desirable to save and restore the "undubbed" 
status?
I know WJS has recommended against SYSCALLS OFF, which would undub a
pfocess.

(An earlier ply was pessimistic about seeing an expert followup.  I suspect3d 
otherwise.)

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Re: SDSF PS Command column

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2024 15:55:26 -0600, Mark Zelden wrote:

>On Fri, 2 Feb 2024 19:30:39 +, Frank Swarbrick wrote:
>
>>Is there any way to get more than the first 40 characters of the associated 
>>command line for a job in the PS screen?
>
>Limited to 40 characters. regardless of what you put in arrange.   (someone 
>can open an enhancement request)
>
No, that should be a Support request  Some defects are simply too wrong to be
subjects for enhancement.

Regardless of documentation.

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Re: Replacement for LMAC program in ISPF 3.1

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2024 16:36:34 -0600, Michael Oujesky wrote:

>Presuming those control block revisions were made 
>with the specific intent to cause existing coding to fail.
>
>Michael
>
>At 05:14 AM 2/1/2024, Lionel B. Dyck wrote:
>
>>This would work great if IBM hadn't also changed 
>>some control block offsets ☹
>> 
Didn't they make corresponding changes in the macros mapping
those data areas?  Did they hard-code those offsets?

Programming 101.

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Timezone Database and POSIX

[Paul Gilmartin]

From a recent thread elsewhere (read with no subscription):
Time Zone Database
https://www.iana.org/time-zones
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2024-January/025094.html
Since the next POSIX will require support for TZDB Zone names in the
TZ environment variable, be more careful about phrases like
“POSIX-like TZ strings” in comments and documentation.  Call them
“POSIX.1-2017-like TZ strings” instead, to make it clearer that
they’re the traditional POSIX form like TZ='GMT0BST,M3.5.0/1,M10.5.0'
instead of the TZDB form like TZ='Europe/London'.

Will z/OS follow this common convention (already used by Java)?
If not, will Unix System Services UNIX branding expire?

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Re: GTF trace for a JCL error?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:41:59 +, Allan Staller  wrote:
>
>You need to look at the JES output to determine the error.
>Use the following command
>S taskname,,,MSGCLASS=x  where x is a held sysout class.
>
>HTH,
> 
Wouldn't it be a good Idea to have a class for "Delete after one hour"!?

I've often wanted that.
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Re: pax and extended attributes

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 14:42:46 +0100, Radoslaw Skorupka wrote:

>I have to move some directory trees from one file system location to
>another.
>The tree is rather complex (dozen directories, hundreds files) and some
>files do have extended attributes.
>My goal is to preserve all the metadata like files ownership, FSP, ACL,
>tags, audit flags, etc.
>
>I tried to use pax
>
Wouldn't it be nice if z/OS supported virtual disks, akin to .iso or .dmg?
(Idea?)

*But* some of the information you need to preserve probably resides
outside the filesystem, such as ACL, tags, audit flags, etc., even as
a snapshot copy of a CKD DASD might not preserve catalog and
RACF information.

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xl/C data types?

[Paul Gilmartin]

(from another list)
On 1/23/24 14:29:31, Arthur David Olson wrote:


I'm wondering if an implementation [of C] is required to support all the 
features of the hardware it is meant for. (If not, implementations on 
[non-]power-of-2 word-size two's complement machines might not have some of the 
intN_t types.)
 .

For example, does z⧸OS XL C⧸C++ support packed decimal?  Others?

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Re: Masking SMF data internally

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 09:58:29 +0400, Jake Anderson wrote:

>Hello
>
>We have a requirement of sharing our SMF data to vendor for a sizing
>operation of our hardware connected to our mainframe
>
>
>Our organization has a policy of masking the critical values before sharing
>it. I see SMF datasets are are editable from ISPF.
>
>Is there a way or someone has undergone this exercise of masking the
>confidential values inside SMF output Dataset?
>
The hard part of the task is recognizing the "critical values".


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Re: Transmitting SMF records

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 20 Jan 2024 00:14:58 -0500, Cheryl Watson wrote:

>I know that I’m late to this game, but we used to have a free tool to handle 
>this called ‘WWUNTERSE’, which has been used by hundreds of people. It is now 
>being made available by its original developer, Mario Bezzi, at this link - 
>https://www.ap4zlabs.com/free-tools. 
> 
What about 
?
Was this topic helpful?
Transmitting data sets
Last Updated: 2023-04-05
You can use the TRANSMIT command to transmit sequential or partitioned data 
sets with
record formats of F, FS, FB, FBS, V, VB, VBS, and U. The data sets must reside 
on a direct
access storage device (DASD). For a VB or VBS data set, the largest logical 
record length
(LRECL) TSO/E can transmit to VM is 65,535.  ...

>==
>On Wed, 25 Jan 2023 20:24:59 +, Andrew N Wilt wrote:
>
>>   ... Apparently, they are able to decipher the RDW records resulting from 
>> uploading a RECFM=VBS as a RECFM=U. Unfortunately, at this time, GDKUTIL 
>> doesn't have the smarts to parse the bytestream as RDW+data as it is writing 
>> to the output data set. That is a current Request For Enhancement, though.

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Re: Technical Reason? - Why you can't encrypt load libraries (PDSE format)?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2024 12:31:36 -0500, Phil Smith III wrote:

>...
>For example, 256-bit AES can be broken by brute force-if you have until the 
>end of time. (And if you'll know it when you see it, another issue.) But that 
>"until the end of time" means you can use it to outrun the bear.
>
>When people say "That's security by obscurity", they really mean "That's weak 
>security because the barriers aren't high enough". That's all. It's not a big 
>revelation.
> 
I believe otherwise.  I know of a case where a vendor allowed a product to
escape to the field containing a tester's back door, and another related
to II14489.  Either could be exploited with no brute force, merely knowledge
of the existence and nature of the defect.  In the case of the latter, the
vendor chose to obscure the details very long term to protect customers
who might not have installed the fix.  "That's security by obscurity."

But protecting passwords is a valid use of "That's security by obscurity."
A password is not a pervasive defect as those other cases are.

-- 
gil

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Re: Technical Reason? - Why you can't encrypt load libraries (PDSE format)?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2024 23:38:23 +, Seymour J Metz wrote:
>
>The issue on STEPLIB is simply that IBM doesn't see a business case to support 
>it. Part of that support would be an update to APF and program control for 
>paths. Would you want individual executables in STEPLIB, or only directories? 
>RFE?
> 
Directories.  Similar to the facilities provided for Assembler STEPLIB.  I 
suspect
much of the accommodation was in access methods, not in HLASM.

Can a program object in a DSFS be used equally by shell as an executable
and by JCL EXEC PGM=?

Does it receive a UNIX-like argc, argv[], envp[] or a CALL R1 plist, or
it depends?

Where's the DSFS User's Guide to answer such questions?

>____
>From:  Paul Gilmartin
>Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2024 1:57 PM
>
>But UNIX program objects are "really files".  "cp -p" works on then.
>
>But content Supervision relies heavily on the elaborate format.  Part
>of the reason that UNIX directories don't work in STEPLIB
>concatenation.  (Idea?)

-- 
gil

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Re: Technical Reason? - Why you can't encrypt load libraries (PDSE format)?

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2024 18:06:24 +0100, Radoslaw Skorupka  wrote:

>I can imagine technical reason to not encrypt such libraries.
>However encryption is a kind of data protection. Data. Not programs.
>
But some load modules/program objects aren't really files.  As Ifond
out to my dismay as a novice when I tried to use IEBGENER to copy
a load module to a different PDS.

But UNIX program objects are "really files".  "cp -p" works on then.

But content Supervision relies heavily on the elaborate format.  Part
of the reason that UNIX directories don't work in STEPLIB
concatenation.  (Idea?)

What about Format preserving encryption?

Should the directory be encrypted likewise?

What about driver-level encryption of virtual DASD?

Unload it and encrypt the archive?

What authority should be needed to use an encrypted program?


>W dniu 13.01.2024 o 17:28, Steve Estle pisze:
>> Everyone,
>>
>> Our team is knee deep into pervasive encryption rollout on ZOS 2.5 and 
>> despite the fact such functionality has been out for years by IBM to do 
>> this, it is quite surprising how many software vendors when you contact them 
>> they have no clue what you're talking about - that is a complete aside - I'm 
>> not going to name vendors here but if you want some examples you can contact 
>> me offline.
>>
>> My true reason for composing this is that we've discovered the inability to 
>> encrypt load libraries - even in PDSE format.  I've yet to get a straight 
>> answer from IBM on why this is?...   Is this a "giant" technical hurdle for 
>> IBM?  Or is it just cause there hasn't been anyone who raised the need yet?  
>> If the latter does this capability interest others here if I were to raise 
>> as an IBM idea - would you vote for it?
>>
>> I know this seems innocuous, but we'd like to encrypt as much as possible in 
>> our environment and due to Top Secret deficiencies we have to encrypt at 
>> high level qualifier level (HLQ) (all or nothing under each HLQ 
>> unfortunately).  Given we have load module libraries under many differ HLQ's 
>> this is posing difficulties in moving forward with our rollout when an HLQ 
>> does have one or more load module libraries as part of that HLQ.  You can 
>> only imagine the pain of renaming a load library given all the JCL, etc that 
>> is referencing that library name.
>>
>> Also, while encrypting load module libraries might seem a little far 
>> fetched, there are of course many malicious viruses that have been launched 
>> by injecting code into a suspecting piece of code.
>>
>> So two questions:
>>
>> 1. Why has IBM not already provided such functionality - can anyone speak to 
>> the technical hurdles to provide?
>> 2. If I were to submit an IBM idea, can I count on this community for some 
>> backing here to help in upvoting such an idea submission?

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gil

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Re: NFS Export of Data Set File System

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 10:02:54 -0600, Lionel B. Dyck wrote:

>Not to argue - they should have a User's Guide but they don't.  The key with 
>dsfs is that once you understand the /dsfs/type (txt/bin/rec/sysout) that is 
>it no different than using any other file in a filesystem.
>
Case sensitivity?

Directory links to files in other directories?

Symbolic links?

Concurrent updates to the same file by multiple jobs with O_APPEND?

Unless such things are handled transparently by the "Colony address space"
and the "Utility file system" there's need for a User's Guide.  The product
shouldn't have gone to GA without one.

-- 
gil

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