Gil, you're right.
Some mainframe utilities are BDW sensitive so you need to know what the utilities are expecting. As far as I know, the main problem is that the concept of "block" is only at mainframe level. Unix or WIndows understand Binary files or CRLF (or LF in Unix) terminated records. So there's no simple way to save the original block size when transferring to workstation. Most depends on the ftp product and, in my experience, the Windows one is really poor. So, if we need to transfer files from MF to MF, it's better to avoid "strange hops" on different platform, unless the FTP software it's well well done. The zip case I use the Undefined format and binary transfer with no RDW command. Massimo 2014/1/2 Paul Gilmartin <[email protected]> > On Thu, 2 Jan 2014 21:26:27 +0100, Massimo Biancucci wrote: > > > >After that you'll have a binary file on your workstation and you can use > it > >if you have a program that can manage such a file (remember no translation > >was done from EBCDIC to ASCII). > > > Beware! The stupidity of the implementation is that if one tries to > reverse the process and GET it back to another z/OS, the conversion > is not reversed and the RDWs remain as part of the data. I suppose > this is WAD. > > >Usually I don't care if I have VB files and I use a standard ASCII ftp. > >Every record will be terminated with a CRLF and I can use it with standard > >applications (like Notepad, Excel and so on). > > > >When I have to use RDW is, for instance, the case of SPANNED records (for > >instance SMF records). This case I need to save every single bit from the > >original in order to use it. > > > But it doesn't save the BDWs. I have heard of utilities that are > sensitive to block boundaries. > > An alternative might be to override to RECFM=U in a DD statement > and transfer as binary. This preserves RDWs and BDWs. > > >A diifferent scenario could be for file like "zip". This case I usually > use > >Undefined Format and binary transfer. > > > For a .zip, don't you want to discard the BDWs and RDWs? > > -- 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
