My guess is 5 levels of qualifiers. But why only 5?
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Phil Smith III <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2025 5:55 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: IRXJCL oddity External Message: Use Caution I'd love to know where that number came from! Why not 36? Or 52? Or 45? Or...? I imagine someone had a control block that was pushing <some limit> and of course "44 characters should be enough for anyone..." and all that! -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Seymour J Metz Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2025 5:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: IRXJCL oddity Maybe *some* MVS folks are content with 44 characters, but definitely not all. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Paul Gilmartin <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2025 5:39 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: IRXJCL oddity External Message: Use Caution On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:54:40 -0400, Phil Smith III wrote: >No no, I meant GLOBALLY: no filenames on the planet should ever have been >case-sensitive! Nobody sane would ever name two files "Foo" and "FOO", so it's >just stupid. I keep asking *ix folks about this--have for 40 years--and all >insist "It's good" without ever being able to justify it. > (What aboutism): It's human to find good in the familiar. The first time I unwittingly typed a 45-character data set name and got a JCL error and wondered at such an uncomfortably small limit, MVS folks all insist "It's good" without ever being able to justify it. *ix historians tell me of an era when filenames were limited to 14 characters. It's possible to overcome such limits formerly justified by hardware costs. I find value in consistency. It's just stupid that BLDL, STOW, Allocation, JCL, snd Catalog Services are case-sensitive whereas TSO, ISPF, (and the C RTL?) are case insensitive. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
