Write a job to delete the files aging for more than 10 days

Abhinav Roy · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 7:17 pm

Hi All,

I have a requirement to delete Mainframe files (aging for more than 10 days) from an archive location. Can any one of you please help me here.

How to identify whether the file is aging for more than 10 days ?

I am ready with the following piece. Question is how to make it complete it in terms of mentioning the archive path and how to identify the number of days for which it is aging.

A response from any one of you and I will be extremely thankful to you.

//DELETE EXEC PGM=IEFBR14
//DD1 DSN=TEST.DATA1,DISP=(MOD,DELETE,DELETE),
// UNIT=SYSDA,SPACE=(CYL,(0))
//DD2 DSN=TEST.DATA2,DISP=(MOD,DELETE,DELETE),
// UNIT=SYSDA,SPACE=(CYL,(0))
//DD3 DSN=TEST.DATA3,DISP=(MOD,DELETE,DELETE),
// UNIT=SYSDA,SPACE=(CYL,(0))
//DD4 DSN=TEST.DATA4,DISP=(MOD,DELETE,DELETE),
// UNIT=SYSDA,SPACE=(CYL,(0))

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 7:44 pm

Terminology is critical since similar terms in IT may mean very different things. When you say "archive path" you are implying a Unix System Services directory since z/OS does NOT have any paths (at least, not for data sets; coupling facilities are a different story but they wouldn't need to be deleted the way you're talking about). And Unix System Services has files whereas z/OS has data sets (files do not necessarily have a record structure whereas data sets are record-based).

If you ARE talking about a Unix System Services directory, investigate the use of skulker. If you are NOT talking about a Unix System Services directory, you have not provided nearly enough information for any answers to make sense. For example,:
- Is data set aging based on create date, last referenced date, or what?
- Using IEFBR14 is probably the worst possible way to delete the data sets.
- Does your site not use HSM for storage management? If so, why are you even bothering with this?
- What is doing the archiving? Could that be used to delete "old" data sets as well?

Terry Heinze · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:03 pm

Abhinav Roy,
Please use Code tags for readability of code, JCL, etc. Example:

Abhinav Roy · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:51 pm

Thanks Robert for your reply.

Yes, it is a Unix System Services directory.

Solution is to do a change directory to any directory one wants to clean, find the files older than 10 days, and delete them

Question is how to execute the The cd (change directory) command in batch ? Any idea ? I will be extremely thankful to you for your response.

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:50 pm

You are not clear -- is there a single archive directory that you know in advance, or are you wanting to remove files of a certain age from any directory? For the former, use skulker in a cron task once a day (cron will allow you to schedule the task when the impact to the system will be minimal). If the latter, you'll need to manually run skulker on the directory. From the Unix System Services Command Reference manual: