Talk:IBM mainframe utility programs

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[edit] IEFBR15

I removed IEFBR15 from this page yesterday. Despite its name, it isn't an IBM utility program, any more than the ISPF PDS-compression hack that was generally known as "IKJJB007" was part of TSO. Somebody just named it that way. Tcb restored it today, saying "IEFBR15 is utility program. It doesn't shipped by IBM but it can be compiled and used on IBM mainframe system." By that logic, every assembler program ever written is a utility program, but as any old-time sysprog can tell you, there was a specific list (which reminds me, I need to add IEHDASDR and the others).

This article is about the MVS utility programs - it's called IBM mainframe utility programs and it starts "IBM Mainframe Utility Programs are supplied with IBM mainframe operating systems such as MVS to carry out various tasks associated with datasets etc." - and IEFBR15 isn't one of them. So I've removed the IEFBR15 entry again, and it should stay gone. It still has it's own page, at (of course!) IEFBR15. RossPatterson 01:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of SORT/MERGE utility (in JCL)

Hi,

   Consider we have a file called POLICY. It looks like this :-
             (It is a flat file)

         Tran. Type                                       Policy no.

--|-----|-127-------|-----------|-----------|-----------|--192-----------

---

         UL2                                              ABCD
         UL2                                              ABCD
         UL2                                              EFGH
         UL3                                              EFGH
         UL2                                              XYZ1 
         UL3                                              XYZ1 
         UL3                                              XYZ1       
         UL2                                              XYZ2

---

We need to generate a report which would contain list of all those policy nos. which use both the transaction types (UL2 and UL3). (For eg.: EFGH & XYZ1).

Using SORT utility in JCL, I first tried to list out all the policies which have 'UL2' as transaction type & store them in a file called 'temp1'.

Similarly, list out the policies having 'UL3' as the transaction type & store them in 'temp2'.

Now, I tried to MERGE these two files to form the final output file so as to get the list of all the policy nos having both the transaction types.

But the major problem faced here is how to compare whether the policy nos. from both the files are equal or not? To be precise, how to compare for equality of fields from two different files inside the control statements of the MERGE utility (after //SYSIN DD * ) ?

Or is there any better solution for it?

Pls. do let me know.

Thanks & Regards, Dhruv. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.91.207.30 (talk) 11:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] updates

I added a divider before the linker & COBOL compiler sections, to clarify that these are not utilities supplied with the OS. I called them "support programs"; not sure if that is the best wording. Any suggestions?

Also, I made a few changes in those items:

- Clarified that the linker works with an object deck from any language, not just COBOL.
- Clarified that this is just the current COBOL compiler, there have been many others over the years.  T-bonham 02:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)