Queue and Scratch Management Commands › Scratch Records › CA ADS Batch Considerations

CA ADS Batch Considerations

Information can be written to temporary scratch files at dialog execution time and passed between dialogs within the same job step in a given CA ADS Batch application. A request to store a scratch record places a record of the requested length in a temporary work file. Records can be accessed in any order from this file. The scratch file need not be defined to the data dictionary.

Scratch records remain in the temporary file until they are explicitly deleted, until the job step is completed, until a signoff occurs, or if the system is shut down or crashes.

Using Scratch Files

To use scratch files:

1. Include process-language SCRATCH statements in dialog process modules. At dialog execution time, these statements store, retrieve, and delete scratch records.

   Syntax for SCRATCH statements in CA ADS Batch dialogs is the same as for CA ADS dialogs. SCRATCH statement syntax is presented later in this section.

2. Define the external name for a scratch file in the DMCL module for scratch (SCRDMCL).
3. Initialize a data set for the scratch file the first time the file is used by using the FORMAT utility.
4. Include FORMAT job control language statements immediately before control statements for the CA ADS Batch application.
5. Specify the ddname/filename for the scratch file in the CA ADS Batch job to make the initialized scratch file available to the application.

   Note: For more information about the FORMAT utility and its input parameters, see the CA IDMS Utilities Guide.

Considerations

• The scratch file cannot be used to communicate between CA ADS Batch job steps.
• The same scratch file can be used in several CA ADS Batch job steps without reinitializing the file. A PUT SCRATCH command must be used before any GET SCRATCH commands.
• Central version must be used to run CA ADS Batch.

More information:

Application and Dialog Utilities