In <h2z4e2421a41005070416ra34dd776g2e8c933c79bbe...@mail.gmail.com>,
on 05/07/2010
at 12:16 PM, Sam Siegel <s...@pscsi.net> said:
>I'm commenting from the perspective of a developer. I'm not sure that I
>understand the distinctions being made.
The SYSCATLG and CVOL[1] infrastructure that existed before VSAM
maintained a tree with 8 character node names. The original VSAM
catalog, and the ICF catalog that replaced it, used the entire name as
a key and had no tree at all, other than the balanced tree used to
implement keys in VSAM.
>It is my understanding that regardless of the type of catalog
>(discounting hfs and zfs file systems) mvs dataset names are
>just that.
They are now; that wasn't always true. The restriction to 8 character
index level was due to SYSCTLG and CVOL, and is still with us now that
CVOL's are gone.
>And that while being similar to a unix/windows file name,
They aren't. E.g., MVS does not allow you to catalog a name with
imbedded blanks.
>Please explain in more detail so I can understand the distinction being
>made.
The major difference is that the periods have special significance,
even after the demise of CVOL's. There's not only the 8 character
limit on index levels, there's also the handling of multi-level
aliases (MLA's).
[1] SYSCTLG was basically just a special CVOL at the root.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
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