The PDSEGEN ISPF Dialog found in this package will present the user with a list of all members of their PDSE, including all generations. There are many commands including Copy and Compare, and many line selection options available, including Browse, Edit, View, Compare, Delete, J (submit), Promote, Rename and Recover. The list of members will be updated appropriately as members are edited, added, deleted, recovered, or promoted. This application will also work with non generation enabled PDSE's and PDS's.
In addition the PDSEGBAK and PDSEGRST applications are packaged with PDSEGEN - see the doc in @BACKUP
- -------------------------- REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------ *
- This application requires z/OS 2.1 or newer to support access via *
- ISPF to generations and does NOT support load libraries or aliases *
- at this time. *
-
* - APAR OA43951 and OA43952 are pre-reqs as it adds the system *
- maximum generation limit to the data facilities area (DFA) *
- control block which is used by this application. This closed *
- in December 2013 so most shops should have this. *
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *
Installation of this dialog is documented in the $INSTALL member. It does involve:
- Copy the ISPF Panels into your ISPF Panel library
- Copy the REXX Execs into your SYSEXEC library
- Copy the LOAD modules into your ISPLLIB library
- Optional assemble the source code provided
- see member ASMJCL
For testing and validation purposes you can use the PDSEGENX exec which will Altlib the exec library and Libdef the panels and load library and then invoke PDSEGEN. PDSEGENX will accept an optional pdse-library as the only parameter but if omitted then the user will be prompted for the PDSE to work with.
MVS/QuickRef - if you have MVS/QuickRef installed then consider installing member PDSEGQW into a MVS/QuickRef database (see QWLOAD for sample JCL).
USAGE.
Entry to the dialog is via the PDSEGEN exec. If called with no parameters then a prompting panel is displayed.
Syntax is: %PDSEGEN dsname filter set
Where dsname is the dataset name for a PDSE with generations.
If dsname is * then a display of the last 15 referenced datasets
will be presented to select from.
If dsname is ? then the ISPF tutorial will be presented.
The dsname may also contain a filter - 'sys1.parmlib(ieasys*)'
Where filter is any valid filter.
Filter are: ABC*, ABC: ,ABC, ABC/, /ABC, or ABC
TODAY, WEEK, MONTH, YEAR, SINCE YY/MM/DD, SINCE -nn
YESTERDAY, SINCE day-of-week (SUnday, Monday, ...)
The date filters are toggles.
Where SET is SET=x where x is B, E, V, or / to define the
default select. This over-rides anything the user may have
set in the entry panel or using the SET command and is
saved in the ISPF profile.
PDSEGEN may also be entered on a DSLIST or ISPF 3.4 dataset list in the command field with a / to indicate to use the dataset on that row as the PDSE to work with.
To simplify entering PDSEGEN on DSLIST or 3.4 you can create this simple exec that I call PG, but you can all it whatever is easy for you:
/* rexx */
arg options
'%pdsegen' options
*** This is provided in the EXEC PDS as member PG ***
Within the application there are commands available on the ISPF Command line and Line selection commands for each member. See the ISPF Tutorial for all commands and options available.
Command line options are:
Backup to invoke the Backup dialog
Browse to browse a member or members from the
command line: B member or B *, or B A%
C to change to a previous dsn using *
to change to the copy target dsn using >
to display a selection list of previous
dsns using ?
to jump directly to a dsn use #
Compare member from to to Compare the 2 generations
e.g. Compare ABC -4 -1
if no member specified then a
prompting panel will popup
Copy Copy from current PDSE to new or existing
PDSE - will allocate new PDSE based
on the current PDSE if create specified
With Copy the space and maxgen can
be changed.
Edit member to edit an existing or new member
e.g. E abc or E *, or E A%
Filter member-pattern to Filter by member mask
abc* for members starting with abc
*abc for members ending with abc
abc/ for members with abc anywhere
Today for updated today
Week for updated last 7 days
Month for updated last 30 days
Year for updated this year
Since yy/mm/dd
Since -nn
OFF to turn off filtering
Find string to find a string in all members/gens
HIGen Display the High Generation members
- known as dummy members
ID xxx Display members with xxx in userid
Locate member or member* to scroll to the member
e.g. L abc
or L ab*
MINE Display members with active userid
MODel to allocate a new dataset based on the
attributes of the current dataset
- after Model the Change > command may
be used to change to the newly created
dataset
Options Display a Primary Command prompting panel
Output to create a report of the active member list
Prune to delete obsolete generations
Refresh <filter> to rebuild the member list
with optional filter
Restore to invoke the Restore dialog
Set popup to change the line selection S
action (B, E, V)
SetMacro (SM) Set an Initial Edit Macro by dataet suffix
Sort Sort by Name, Creation, Changed, or User
- point/shoot for these column headers
Sort Field-name Order where order is A or D
Submit Submit a member, member generation or *
e.g. SUB ABC, or SUB *, or SUB A%C
Validate Validate the PDSE using IEBPDSE
- if clean is enabled in PDSEGENS then the
validate will also force a clean for all
pending deletes.
View To View a member, or members, from the
command line: V member or V * or V A%
Quit and Exit Commands to end the dialog (F3 always works)
Line selection options are (short and long forms):
A to change attributes (ver/mod/userid)
- Attrib
B to browse the member
- Browse
** C or COPy to copy a member to a different dataset
- May only be used on base members but all generations
for the selected member will also be copied
D to delete the member, or a generation
- Delete
* E to edit the member
- Edit
** G Recover a generation to a new member based on the
name provided via a prompting popup panel
- RECover
H hide the member/generation from the table
to exclude the member/generation from command line
B *, E *, V *
- Hide
I display ISPF statistics for the member or generation
- Info
J to submit the member (JCL) to the internal reader
- Submit
K to clone a member (generation 0 only)
- no generations are cloned
- Klone or Clone
M to eMail the member (using XMITIP)
- Mail
O to display the tutorial for options
** P Promote a generation to generation 0
Copies a non-0 generation into generation 0
and leaves the user in Edit. If you save then
generation 0 is replaced.
- Promote
* Q to Rename and swap the member and all generations
- RENSwap
* R to Rename a member and all generations
- REName
S to use the default option as defined on the entry panel
- default is B
- Select
U to invoke a user command on the dataset(member)
- including generations
- User
V to view the member
- View
X to eXecute the member (REXX or CLIST)
- EXecute
** Z to compare the base (gen 0) non-0 generation - COMpare / to display the tutorial for options
Placing the cursor on the row and hitting ENTER will also
select the row.
* - ONLY allowed for generation 0 members
** - ONLY work with non-0 generation members
Notes:
- All line selection options can be used in block form - BB/BB or B99
- Expanded commands may also be blocked by doubling the 1st character, e.g. KKlone, but expanded commands may not have a count
- When using the expanded selection panel then any TSO command, clist, or exec can be used along with any valid line selections. The User command dialog will be presented to allow the user to enter other parameters.
Why use, or consider, PDSEGEN:
- To see the generations easily
- To be able to compare current generation to prior generations to see what changed (broke)
- To easily recover a prior generation using recover to a new member or promote to replace the current base member
- To easily clean up obsolete, no longer needed, generations (prune)
- To safely copy the base member and all generations
- To easily backup and restore without loss of generations
- Protection from accidentally editing a non-0 generation
- Easily search members and generations
- Easy access to up to 15 datasets
- Info on which generation is being browsed/edited/viewed
- All the above and more
Customization options are all found in the PDSEGENS exec:
- Change the mail variable to 1 to enable e-mailing the selected member or 0 to disable the e-mail option.
- Enable or disable the elapsed time display after building the member list - change etime variable to 0 to disable and 1 to enable it.
- Enable or disable processing of dummy members by changing the higen variable. 0 = off and 1 = on.
- Added base_color and sort_color for the columns that can be sorted to allow changing those colors if desired. Default is blue for unsorted and turq for sorted.
- Enable or disable the IEBPDSE Clean option
- Requires IBM Apar OA47755 or OA50214 for this support
- Update the help panels that document sample JCL for batch Backup and Copy to conform to your installation standards and datasets, PDSEGHBJ for Backup and PDSEGHC for Copy.
- If your installation has a Edit Line Command Table defined in your ISPF configuration AND it isn't in the ISPF Table dataset defined in the sample batch JCL for Backup and Copy then those samples need to be updated to concatenate that dataset.
Notes:
-
Browse works as you would expect it to
-
Using Edit or View you can use all normal edit commands, including edit macros. However commands that reference other members can only reference the base, or generation 0, member.
-
Multiple members may be selected for Browse or View but Edit will only work if the member IS NOT saved or updated. If a member is saved or updated then all rows for that member are deleted and re-added to include the updated generation info.
-
It shouldn't have to be stated but generations are only supported for PDSE Version 2 datasets where generations have been enabled.
-
Edit will be converted to View for non-0 generation members.
-
The Compare command only accepts relative generation numbers.
-
The Compare line option will compare the base member to the selected generation.
-
It is possible to allow Edit to edit a generation BUT when that happens only the generation is updated and the base member is NOT updated. Thus the generation with the update could be lost and/or hidden since it is not possible to access a generation using dynamic allocation or JCL.
This application has been configured to prevent editing non-0 generations.
-
The ISPF Edit compare command has been extended using an edit macro. The new capabilities include the ability while in Edit to compare to another generation of that member (e.g. compare -2) or to compare to another member generation (e.g. compare xx -3). When in view it is possible to compare to the base (e.g. compare 0) or to another member or generation (e.g. compare xxx -1). If the compare options do not include a generation then the normal ISPF compare will be invoked.
-
The e-mail option utilizes XMITIP using the XMITIPFE (front end) exec. This option is only available if the mail variable is customized to 1.
-
Aliases are NOT supported by the PDSEGENI Rexx Function so this application does not support aliases (at this time)
-
Rename will rename the base member and all generations by doing a copy of the generations so they are retained.
-
Find can be faster if Filter is used prior to the find
-
Prune operates on only the members in the display list so using Filter before Prune is a good way to limit the members that Prune will clean up.
-
Before using Prune a Backup is recommended (CYA).
-
PDSEGEN supports extended statistics. If a member has more than 64K (65535) records then the only way to display the actual record count is to turn on extended statistics using the ISPF Edit command STATS EXT.
-
When Hide is active, Delete, Prune, and Rename are not available.
-
The Member list display defaults to a 2 digit year display. Using the Left or Right keys (F10 or F11) will shift to use the 4 digit year display by removing the Initial size field from the table. This view is remembered across sessions.
-
If you see a member with a -1 generation and there is no 0 generation that indicates that the member was deleted outside of PDSEGEN. The normal ISPF member delete will delete the base member but leave the generations and the base member will become the -1 generation.
Acknowledgements: Thanks are due to Thomas Reed of IBM who presented at the 2015 SHARE in Seattle on PDSE V2 Member Generations and provided sample code for finding the generations which I've used as a starting place for my dialog.
Thanks also to the following for testing, commenting,
trouble shooting, and making suggestions to improve
this tool:
* Bill Smith * Sam Golob
* Bruce Koss * Tom Conley
* John Kalinich * Greg Price
* Salvador Carrasco
Members of this PDS are:
$CHANGES - summary of changes
$$$DOC - what you are reading
$INSTALL - Short installation instructions
$MODULES - Info on the source/load modules
$RECV - TSO Command to RECEIVE EXEC and PANELS into
usable datasets
- Updates PDSEGENX in the exec library with the
dataset names of the restored datasets
- Updates the ASMJCL member of this PDS with the
dataset name of the restored source and load
libraries
@BACKUP - Doc on using PDSEGBAK to backup/restore a PDSE V2
@CLS - Assembler source for a TSO clear screen command
ASM - Assembler source for the PDSEGENI code
ASMJCL - JCL to assemble and link PDSEGENI, PDSEGDEL and
PDSEGMAT if you want to reassemble for any reason
CLS - Object Deck of the CLS assembler module to
clear the screen during the $RECV process
EXEC - TSO Transmit of the REXX Library
FIXPDSEG - edit macro used by $RECV to update key members
during the receive process
LICENSE - the GPL V3 License
LOAD - Load module of PDSEGENI (put into ISPLLIB or STEPLIB)
PANELS - TSO Transmit of the ISPF Panel Library
SAMPBR - sample JCL to run PDSEGBAK in batch
SAMPCOPY - sample JCL to run PDSEGENC in batch
SAMPLE - TSO transmit of sample PDSEGEN backup will be
restored to PDS by $RECV and can then be processed by
PDSEGEN RESTORE command to recreate a PDSE with
members and generations
SUPPORT - information about the lack of official support or
warranty.
WISHLIST - Enhancement requests that are queued (maybe)
Disclaimer: This software is provide for your use without any warranty or recourse should it not perform or cause problems. The author and others who have contributed are not responsible for issues that arise, nor are their employers. Use this software at your own risk. Test and test again before using in any productive capacity.
Restrictions of PDSE V2 Generations:
- The MAXGENS option defines the number of generations plus 1 for the base or generation 0 member. Thus a MAXGENS of 10 yields 11 members.
- You can delete an individual generation and that will leave a gap
in the generations. This will result in this application stopping its
member search at the 1st gap.
- this option is not available with this application
- Use of TSO DELETE will delete the base member BUT will NOT Delete
any generations. The ISPF LMMDEL service will delete the base
member and ALL generations. This application uses the LMMDEL
service.
- If you delete a member and all generations and then create a new member with the same name. All generations for the new member will start with the previous members generation next high generation number.
- Some ISPF applications do not use LMMDEL to delete members but use the equivalent of the TSO DELETE, with the same results.
- The use of ISPF copy services, including 3.3, will NOT copy any generations. Nor will IEBCOPY. The only tool to copy generations is DFDSS (a full dataset dump/restore/copy). This application does not support copying at this time.
- If you Edit a generation other than 0 and save it then no new generation is generated. That only happens when editing generation 0.
- You CANNOT access any generations using JCL or dynamic allocation.
- You can force a new generation, when editing generation 0, by using the Edit command SAVE NEWGEN.
- You can prevent the creation of a new generation by using the Edit command SAVE NOGEN
- To find what PDSEGBAK member maps to what real name use Edit (or View) on the backup member and use the ISPF Edit command GNAME
- See the Tutorial option U for a list of vendor products that have no or partial support for member generations
See Thomas Reed's SHARE Presentation at: https://share.confex.com/share/124/webprogram/Session16957.html