It is not at all clear to me that the notion of an empty dataset is illogical.
In another guise they are already familiar to all of us. Consider the two datasets of //GUBBINS0 DD DUMMY, . . . //GUBBINS1 DD DSN=NULLFILE, . . . If you attempt to read from either of these datasets EOF is raised immediately. If you write to one of them what you write goes down Orwell's memory hole. Is a PL/?I varying string, one that can have any length between zero and its maximal, allocated or declared length, illogical? Or again, consider the HLASM character set symbol of |&text setc '' After the execution of this set statement k'&text is zero; The value of &text is a nul string, one of length zero; and such strings have many important uses. The Identification of the familiar with the logical and the unfamiliar with the illogical is not a helpful notion. --jg ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
