NCL VSAM Techniques › Offline Processing of Data Sets

Offline Processing of Data Sets

In a z/OS environment, the DEALLOCATE command can be used to release a UDB for offline processing. Conversely, the ALLOCATE command can be used to bring a UDB on-line for processing.

In non-z/OS environments, the stripping of files, created by NCL for further offline processing, can be achieved without a restart of the system if the following rules are followed:

• VSAM SHAREOPTIONS must allow concurrent access to the data set.
• DISP=SHR must be specified on the data set.
• The UDBCTL CLOSE command is used to stop further logical connections to the file and to physically close the file. This is only successful if there are no active users currently referencing the file. The SHOW UDBUSER command can be used to display the current user of a UDB.
• Use a utility to strip the file (for example, the VSAM IDCAMS utility REPRO facility).

If the UDB has been processed using standard format, any offline processing programs must take the high-value (X'FF') field separators into account when determining the format of data within records.

To allow non-UDB format files to be processed, your product provides a format operand on the &FILE OPEN and &FILE SET statements, that designates the format of the files being processed.