Charles,
Let me deal with your two questions Aren't you conflating DETACH and DELETE? A programmer who is ATTACHing with ECB the same load module multiple times should issue one DETACH for every ATTACH, no? seriatim. They led me to consult the assembler services reference, and the relevant language in it is: <begin extract> If you code the ECB or ETXR parameter, you must issue a DETACH macro to remove the subtask from virtual storage before the program that issued the ATTACH macro terminates. If you do not code the ECB or ETXR parameter, the system automatically removes the subtask from virtual storage upon completion of the subtask’s processing. <end extract> The answer to your first question is no. An alternative, I think preferable, design would use LOAD and DELETE explicitly. The OP talks only about ATTACH, which implicitly brings a copy of the executable, load module or program object, into storage if a usable one in not already present there (and known to Contents Supervision). The answer to your second question is of course yes, and it is something I should have been more explicit about in my first post. I try, in responding to questions, to avoid providing too much information, a quart jar, when the OP only wants a pint pot. That said, the ECB parameter is the mechanism provided for giving a task explicit information about and a measure of control over an attached subtask; and I always use one. Their use is indeed essential when there are precedence relations among a sequence of subtasks or when an operation is relegated to a subtask so that it can fail without ABENDing its attacher. This time, since the question had no context, I answered it minimally and, I now suspect, inadequately. John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA _________________________________________________________________ The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html