On 2019-04-13, at 07:57:41, Peter Relson wrote:

> I'd guess that you get this same error from a lot of places in z/OS, just 
> not with ASMA999U as the prefix. Searching for "WRONG LEN RECRD" gets a 
> lot of hits.
> 
> Perhaps you ought to focus on the area that is likely to be changed (the 
> documentation) rather than one that isn't (the code). The doc for ASMA999U
>   
Times change.  New capabilities entrain new responsibilities.  The OP
discussed macros in a z/OS UNIX filesystem, where, for example not every
file can be identified by the 44+8 bytes once graven on stone tablets.

> ought to be improved. It should mention this extra information courtesy of 
> the SYNAD processing (or at least point to a place where the extra 
> information is described, and that description ought to explain what it 
> means and in this case give some of the obvious examples).
>  
Is there such a place?  Following your hint about SYNAD(AF), I find:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.3.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r3.idad500/syndf.htm

    The SYNADAF macro uses register 1 to return the address of an area 
containing
    a message. The message describes the error, and can be printed by a later 
PUT,
    WRITE, or WTO macro. The message consists mainly of EBCDIC information and
    is in variable-length record format. The format of the area is shown 
following the
    descriptions of the SYNADAF parameters.

("mainly"?  What else?  UTF-8?)

I assume that's Y(count),X'0000',up to 32,752 bytes of message text.  That
suggests it might be PUT (directly?) to SYSTERM.  Better be RECFM=VB.  Is
there carriage control?  A or M?  What LRECL is required?  Of course, if
that's documented somewhere it boxes the design in from providing additional,
better, information in the future.

In 1970, a programmer might know everything needed about OS/360.  z/OS is
bigger; the programmer needs more help.

Isn't storage about a million times cheaper, which should accommodate
more complete message texts?

-- gil

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