With INSPECT verb we can convert lower case characters to upper case:

INSPECT text-one CONVERTING ‘abcdefgh’     TO ‘ABCDEFGH’ . 

The main usage of INSPECT is we can customise the string:

Benefit-2:

Secondly, it counts all the letters in an array:

PERFORM VARYING idx 1 BY 1 UNTIL idx > 100

   INSPECT text-one  TALLYING COUNT1(idx) FOR ALL LETTER1(idx)

END-PERFORM 

All the letters in LETTER1 table counted into Count1.

Benefit-3:

Thirdly, REPLACING as needed one or multiple letters in output string.

INSPECT text-two REPLACING ALL “H” BY “K”
       AFTER INITIAL “C” BEFORE INITIAL “O”. 

Benefit-4:

Replacing also works, to replace only if found 4 letter word:

Example,

PERFORM VARYING idx FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL idx > 100

INSPECT text-three REPLACING testable(idx) BY “1234″

END-PERFORM

There are many other usages. In my next post, I will discuss about problems that we meet in daily use.

Objectstar is a Data Access method. We can copy or write data into many external legacy data bases.

• ADA Adabas
• DAT CA Datacom
• DB2 DB2
• IDM IDMS
• IMS IMS/DB 

It is platform independent, we can use it on ZOS, Windows, UNIX etc

The main advantage is we can read and write data from legacy databases, without learning those database techniques. This is one of the best usage for mainframe.

Check here material on Objectstar for fundamentals. I collected this free source from IMPULSE SOLUTIONS LTD.

You can also find here for more info on it.

EIBCALEN:  This CICS reserved word we use usually in the subroutine, say, we are calling a sub-program, and passing some data.

The interesting point is we do not know whether data is received or not (I hope you got the point. I am getting some data from the screen passing to first main program and next to sub-program). With this variable we can test it and control the program logic.

EVALUATE TRUE

     IF  EIBCALEN = 0

           EXEC  CICS

           RECEIVE  INTO(WS-RECORD)

           END-EXEC

    END-IF

END-EVALUATE

And, we can continue writing the code, If EIBCALEN = 1 to throw abend.

The above sample code shows how we receive the data in sub-module.

similarly, we can use DFHCOMMAREA in linkage section, to get data from the main program into sub program.

In the main program, we pass data as below:

EXEC CICS

LINK PROGRAM (ABCDEF)

COMMAREA(WS-DATA-AREA)

LENGTH(LENGTH OF WS-DATA-AREA)

END-EXEC

In the sub-program we need to use DFHCOMMAREA in linkage section to get the data.

Sub-program:

LINKAGE SECTION.

  01 DFHCOMMAREA.

       10 LS-DATA-AREA               PIC   X(1000)

The above are the possible ways to get data from main-program to sub-program.

I have collected the picture  from IBM, how data will pass check here .  

I am just giving here for my blog readers:

1. Never say ‘That’s not my Job’
2. Never behave as if you know everything:
3. Don’t be Unsocial
4. Do not take vacations immediately after joining
5. Do not get involved in surfing the social networking sites
6. Never get indulged with office Gossip
7. Don’t lie about a mistake done by you
8. Avoid saying ‘I’ instead of ‘We’ 

<<Post your comments after reading this article, and your thoughts. I will share it to all>>

For complete article read here. It is FREE.

I have seen in Banking and Telecom domain, the usage with OUTFIL are much many

Just a few:

1. Write to multiple output datasets
2. Covert FB file to VB file
3. Converts VB file to FB
4. Also, Parsing, Editing, Reformatting we can do

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Actually, with SORT we can avoid writing complex programs. There are many things to learn. OUTFILE and OUTFIL both are correct.

Let me give an example:

OUTFIL FNAME=(FILE1, FILE2, FILE3) => So after sorting we can write sorted results to multiple files. These file can be DASD, TAPE etc.

Another usage is :

OUTFIL FNAMES=SKIP70,STARTREC=71

OUTFIL FNAMES=MIDDLE,STARTREC=601,ENDREC=1000

More I will give in my next posts.

After typing the above command you can see, lot of line commands.

In front of job step you can use the below commands

SJ  ==> It will show complete jcl

SE ===> You can edit the data

SB ==> Only to browse

XDC ==> Command to copy SYSOUT into PS or PDS member etc.,

For example, CREATE DISTINCT TYPE AUDIO AS BLOB(1M);

So now the “audio” becomes a new data-type.

If we talk about user defined data types, there are 2 types.

Distinct type:In this case only user defined type is customised based on existing type

Structured type: 

CREATE TYPE PERSON_DET AS (NAME CHAR(20),

AGE INT,

ADDRESS ADDRESS_T,

INSTANTIABLE

REF USING VARCAHR(13) FOR BIT DATA

MODE DB2 SQL;

The basic difference is , we can create a structure with mix of db2 existing types and UDTs.

The usage for UDTs we can see in the Banking domain.

In my next posts I will add more explanation.

SDSF: It is also called spool display search facility. We can watch jobs while running in the spool. This facility helps us to do many with the list of jobs.

Command                                       Action

OWNER    XYZABC                         It filters for a particular owner(TSO-Id)

LOCATE  Column-name                It locates column name

PREFIX    Job-name                        It filters by job-name

FIND       String                                We can find the string

TOP         Scrolls to top

BOTTOM   Scrolls to bottom

LEFT         Scrolls to left

RIGHT     Scrolls to right   

SELECT   we use to display selected row

//Step1   EXEC  PGM=IDCAMS

//SYSIN   DD   *

   DELETE ‘XXXX.XXXX.XXXX.XXX’ GDG FORCE

/*

(or) if we want to delete migrated-GDGS,  use the following syntax.

//Step1   EXEC  PGM=IDCAMS

//SYSIN   DD   *

   HDELETE ‘XXXX.XXXX.XXXX.XXX’ GDG FORCE

/*

There are two optional parameters usually we give with DELETE.

FORCE: It deletes all clusters in the catalogue.

NOFORCE: It deletes empty catalogue. If the catalogue does have cluster entries, it will not delete.

PURGE: Even though GDG has retention period, it deletes all entries.

NOPURGE: When the GDG has retention period, it will not delete the entries.

With IDCAMS utility we can delete GDG clusters and VSAM clusters. 

• Go to SDSF.
• In the line command type “arrange ?”
• This will bring the list of SDSF columns
• We can move columns using “/” or “//”
• This way as required we can re-arrange columns

Which date take less CPU time (Cobol or DB2):

Check here how to get COBOL Date and Time-stamp.

MOVE CURRENT-DATE1 TO NEW-DATE takes less CPU time than Date that we get from DB2

SELECT CURRENT DATE FROM SYSDUMMY1.