Need Varable List to be picked up by Jobs

Christopher Mark Roberts · New User Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Location: China

I've recently become part of a team set to take over some legacy systems. After a little research I discovered I had many, many libs full of completely useless JCL. It can't be used because the original support team (about 3 support teams ago) hardcoded all datasets as in

DFSRESL DD DSN=sys.our.linklib

Since then all the system DS's have been renamed, thus rendering the JCL useless.

I want to bring the JCL up to speed but I don't want to hard code as this could lead to the same issue in the future.

In my last shop we kept a member that was nothing but variables assigned to datasets, then in the jcl you could reference the DS through the variable so if the name of the reslib changed you only had to change the variable in one place and all the jobs still ran. I'm embarrassed to say I never payed much attention to how it worked as it was set up before I came and I simply used the jobs.

So can anybody tell me how to set up the member and reference it in JCL? All I can find in the forum and doc are instream variable setting.

I will pre-apologize if this should be posted in the IMS DB/DC forum.

Any help is appreciated.

ofer71 · Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:36 pm

Take a look at the SET and INCLUDE commands of JCL.

O.

Christopher Mark Roberts · New User Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Location: China

i looked at that and ran some tests, all i could get was the whole member

superk · Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:20 pm

Chris, could you elaborate on this comment:

Christopher Mark Roberts · New User Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Location: China

I wasn't sure if this had more to do with system setup than JCL. Most of the posts here seem to do with JCL in/re running programs.

I will also elaborate on my last comment:

i looked at that and ran some tests, all i could get was the whole member

When I set up a pds member SETPARMS, and then code

// INCLUDE MEMBER=SETPARMS

I get

3 // INCLUDE MEMBER=SETPARMS
4 &&TESTLIB=IMS.CNCCCCCC.TESTLIB
5 &&RESLIB=IMS.TEST.RESLIB

When what I want is the is the lib as part of the sysin and some type of statement in the JCL like:

testlib=&testlib

Which will resolve to IMS.CNCCCCCC.TESTLIB so that when I revamp the JCL in the shop we will only need to maintain the member SETPARMS as DS names change and the JCL will run.

Bitneuker · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:31 am

Hi Chris,

Can't imagine this is typical IMS DB/DC; operating system and system setup look closer to me. But than again: I will look into it when I get back from course whci will be 12 march. You either have to be patient, trus on Devzee or find the solution to your problem and report back.

Christopher Mark Roberts · New User Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Location: China

Ok, after several days of frustration I finally figured out what my last shop used to use:

You create a member of a DS, IE

IMS.TOOL.BOX(SETPARMS)

Which contains statements like:

000430 //* THIS IS A TEST OF PARAMETER SETTING
000440 //*
000450 //*****************************************
000460 // SET TESTLIB=IMS.CNCCCCCC.TESTLIB
000500 // SET RESLIB=IMS.TEST.RESLIB
000600 // SET PROCLIB=IMS.TEST.PROCLIB
ETC

Then if you want for instance reslib, in your JCL you need statements:

000210 //PARMLIB JCLLIB ORDER=(IMS.TOOL.BOX)
000220 //LOCL INCLUDE MEMBER=SETPARMS
000230 //RESLIB DD DSN=&RESLIB,DISP=SHR

When the job runs it resolves thusly:

7 //RESLIB DD DSN=&RESLIB,DISP=SHR
IEFC653I SUBSTITUTION JCL - DSN=IMS.TEST.RESLIB,DISP=SHR

JCL coded in this manner is, in my opinion, lower maintenance. You can code 1 job and propagate to different systems and, if the name of the RESLIB changes, you don't need to change every piece of JCL that references the RESLIB, you just change the SET RESLIB= statement in your parameter list member.

Hope this helps somebody.

Bitneuker · Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:54 pm

Thanks Chris, stored in the knowlegde database

Christopher Mark Roberts · New User Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Location: China

It would be nice if this group had a systems forum.

Happy days.

Edited: remark removed, is irrelevant

Bitneuker · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:11 pm