On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 14:20:04 -0500, Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) wrote:
>
>>I'll retract "grievous".
>
>But see below.
>
Thanks for seeing past my bombast.
>>If the argument of PATH is anything other than '/dev/null'
>>(or '//dev/null'), the file is allocated as a UNIX file and can be
>>processed as a UNIX file. If it is '/dev/null' it as allocated as
>>DUMMY,
>
>If true, I'd have to agree with egregious; neither the C/I not allocation
>should have special processing for any path name.
>
One might make the same argument about DSNAMEs -- either way.
NULLFILE could have been catalogued on an imaginary UNIT and
the special processing deferred to the access method, even as
/dev/null has a real directory entry as a character special
device, and Unix's special processing of /dev/null is left to
the driver for that device.
>>It's worth a chapter in the JCL RM.
>
>If there actually is such a problem and IBM doesn't correct it, then I'd
>say that it should be documented in both the JCL RM and the JCL UG.
>
It's not a "problem", but a feecher:
12.42.6 "z/OS V1R7.0 MVS JCL Reference"
12.42.6 Dummy HFS Files
The following DD statements define a dummy
HFS file. The statements are equivalent; for DUMMY3, the extra slashes
(/) are compressed to single slashes.
//DUMMY1 DD PATH='/dev/null'
//DUMMY2 DD DUMMY,PATH=/ANYNAME
//DUMMY3 DD PATH='//dev///null'
>>What benefit of this distinct treatment of /dev/null justifies the
>>resource spent on its implementation?
>
I still wonder.
>I'm not convinced that there is such a treatment, but if you're not
>misinterpreting things then it would definitely violate Unix[2] semantics.
>
>[2] You might argue that JCL is outside the scope of Unix, but I doubt
> that the Unix community would buy that.
>
I suppose that Unix community would expect the look and feel of
Unix, even as the JCL community would expect the look and feel
of JCL.
-- gil
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