I don't believe there is a VVDS on a volume if there is no VSAM, and if the volume is non-SMS. So a sysres volume probably might not have a VVDS on it, and most non-SMS volumes would not as well, unless there is VSAM.
You could probably check for a VTOCIX if you make all of your volumes have an index? I do these checks in the following REXX code using the console command: "CONSOLE DEACTIVATE" "CONSPROF SOLDISPLAY(NO) UNSOLNUM("NM") SOLNUM("NM") UNSOLDISPLAY(NO)" "CONSOLE ACTIVATE CART("TOKEN") NAME("NAME")" VOLA=GDGX ADDRESS CONSOLE 'D U,VOL='VOLA'' ER = GETMSG(DMSG.,"SOL",TOKEN,MASK,5) MSGCHECK=SUBSTR(DMSG.1,2,7) IF MSGCHECK='IEE455I' THEN DO LINE.J= 'THE VOLSER FOR GDG: 'GDGX' DOES NOT EXIST' J=J+1 END If you look into the CONSOLE command you can do the D U,VOL=xxxxxx command and interogate the output. This works for a weekly job where I check for the existence of all of our dump datasets for actual online volumes. Hope this helps. C. Todd Burrell, PMP, MCP Lead z/OS Systems Programmer ITSO (404) 723-2017 (Cell) -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Todd Burch Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 9:57 AM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: Validating existance of a Volume from REXX I have written a REXX exec with an ISPF dialog that will allow a user to copy and rename a cataloged dataset to another volume. The user will rename the dataset, and has the option to catalog, or not, the new dataset. Also, the user has the option to delete the existing cataloged-or-not dataset on the target volume. I've been using LISTDSI on "SYS1.VVDS.V"volume_name to validate the existence of the target volume since the user can type in the volume name. However today, on the target volume, the SYS1.VVDS.Vvolume_name entry does not exist, so LISTDSI fails with RC=16, REASON=0024 - dataset does not exist. I'm a novice to this area, and my existing logic is probably pretty hackish, at best. Two questions- 1) Why might the SYS1.VVDS dataset not exist for the volume today? 2) What is a better approach to volume validation? Thanks, Todd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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