Problem related Looping in JCL

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:00 am

Hello All,
I am facing a problem in looping in JCL.
I am using Proc.
Looping is like below:

MainJCL ----> Proc 1

Proc1---(Ends with some cond)---> Proc2(When Proc 2 ends)-----> Proc1

Proc2 ----(Ends with some cond)---> Proc2

But i am getting :
PROC PROCESSING STOPPED BECAUSE OF A RECURSIVE EXECUTION
'PROC2'.
PROC PROCESSING STOPPED BECAUSE OF A RECURSIVE EXECUTION
'PROC1'.

Is there any other other method to loop a proc untill the condition is matched...

The recursion is more that 15 times....

superk · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 7:36 am

Huh?

I'm not sure exactly what you're doing, but proc's can only be nested so deep:

publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/IEA2B670/5.3?SHELF=EZ2ZO10J&DT=20070427231644

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 8:46 am

1. JCL cannot be looped -- it executes from first line to last line.
2. Although I don't see anything in the manual, I don't believe you can use procedures recursively in JCL. There's nothing to support the recursion in the JCL, and that could be considered a form of looping (already known to not work).
3. Nested procedures are very clearly limited to 15 deep in the manual. If you need more than that, you will have to find another way.
4. Batch jobs that do conditional processing can be very tricky to get right, and from the fuzziness of your post (incorrect terminology, incorrect concepts, just to name two), I doubt you are going to be able to accomplish what you want with what you are doing.

So why don't you clear all preconceived notions about how to do what you are attempting, tell us exactly what you want to do (without mentioning anything about method) and see what gets suggested.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:01 am

Hi,

How does your process know when to quit?

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:05 am

And when you get these messages:

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:26 pm

Hello,

In the PROC1, i am processing a sequencial file FILE1(Containing about 400 Records.)

For every record of FILE1, a file is generated as FILE2(Contains dynamic no of records).

In PROC2, I have process FILE2, it has some cobol pgms and some jcl steps,and it is not possible to cover it in a single cobol pgm.

When PROC2, ends i have to process Record2 of FILE1(Through Proc1), which again calls PROC2 to process the output FILE2(corrs to record2 of File1).

Is there any other option left for looping... as the recursion is limited to 15.

@ANUJ: Those error msgs are from JCL Check.

Thanks.

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 5:45 pm

Your options are:

1. Set up your JCL to run 400 times (once for each record in FILE 1).
2. Do a process redesign that looks at what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and gets rid of the supposed need to loop in JCL.

You need to be aware that once a job is submitted, it goes through the converter / interpreter of JES. At that point, nothing your executing programs can do can impact the job that is running -- NOTHING! You cannot perform actions at run time that will affect your executing JCL -- it has been fixed in stone at that point. You could redesign the process so a separate job is submitted for each record in FILE 1 but you cannot do anything in the current job to change steps that haven't executed yet.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:27 pm

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:34 pm

Hello all...
I am done with looping with JCL...
Instead of using PROC, i am using JCL itself....
and while calling the proc ... i am submitting the another JCL by Internal Reader.....
Submitting JCL2 from JCL1 and JCL1 from JCL2 until my condition is matched..

Thanks for all your Concerns...

dick scherrer · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:28 pm

Hello,

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:43 pm

Hello,
Let me explain the whole Senario.

JCL1

dominickim · New User Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 65 Location: NS, CA

Please see below code. STEP1 will be executed 10 times by submitting itself.

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:35 pm

Hi Dominickim
This case can be considered when we know the number of recurssion.
But what if the recurssion is dynamic..??

Thanks

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:38 pm

This is not a JCL loop. This is a job running, submitting another job, then ending. The second job submits a third job, then ends, and so forth. Depending upon site standards, such a scheme probably cannot be promoted to production since the scheduler system would have problems.

dick scherrer · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:01 pm

Hello,

Strongly suggest a re-design be considered. . .

I suspect that the same thing you need to do (which has not been described yet) has been done on hundreds or thousands of applications without requiring this particular flip-flop loop in the jcl. . .

If you describe the business requirement (rather than what is being attempted technically to meet the requirement), someone may have a more useful suggestion.

dominickim · New User Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 65 Location: NS, CA

Hello GauravKudesiya,
You can change the STEP2 and STEP3 in order to generate condition code to stop submitting, sample that I showed you is only using counter. I think there are different ways to make condition code, for example when file is empty, not cataloged, migrated, etc, even you can delete STEP2 and 3 and change the STEP1 to your COBOL program to set the condition code like you did.

Robert Sample,
Thanks for your comments. You are right. I was just trying to show him to find another way to do it.

GauravKudesiya · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:18 pm

I DO AGREE THAT THE DESIGN IS NOT UPTO THE MARK.

Requirment:
Need to build the ACF2 Rules, for 400 IDS on there new UID.
Have to give access on all the Transaction, on which they have.

LIMITATION:
1) We have to take input from FILE, Sequential ONE-BY-ONE as Rules for Trans can not be compile for all IDs together.

2) There will be tons of Trans pre ID, and if will be decompiled in different files,it is not possible to give referance of all files in a cobol, as new rule have to be created by COBOL.

3) Also need to find out the access on those ID by a Utility, so need to come out of COBOL.

4) So its a mix n match of COBOL and JCL, so have to process each INPUT One-by-One and tehn again Process the Trans ONE-By-ONE.

Processin of Tran is also Mix-n-Match of COBOL and JCL.

Hope its put some light on this Design Pattern.
Thanks,
Gaurav

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:12 pm

MBabu · Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:06 am

If I were a system administrator or systems programmer and saw this kind of implementation, lets just say (to be kind), someone would get a stern talking to (as they were led out the door).

You are creating a system with hundreds or thousands of separate jobs where a single small bug can cause the whole mess to be self replicating and out of control, potentially bringing down the entire system. Each job could need its own initiator, and of course, the whole process might take days, weeks or months depending on the availability of initiators. It also breaks the ability to do performance prioritization as a single unit of work (I use the term loosely here), scheduling, system analysis and probably other things.

Use JCL for what it is meant to do - control one process. There is no reason that your main program can not invoke your ACFBATCH, COB4 and ACFBATCH routines as its own subtasks. In my opinion, this whole process should be a single job. You can call programs dynamically from COBOL and do dynamic allocations.

A job is not a subroutine and should not be used as such.