This is a vendor product and I am the developer. I got a bug report from some customer who tried to download a VS data set from the spool and the server got the abend. I have reproduced this by using IEBCOPY to unload a PDS and pointing SYSUT2 at SYSOUT. If I use the SDSF JOB DATA SET display and scroll to the right, I can see the data set is RECFM=VS, LRECL=23212. Since the message manual quite clearly states you cannot read a VS data set from SYSOUT using QSAM, I should close the bug as a permanent restriction. But my curiosity was piqued when I found that another of our products *could* read the data set; I just cannot work out how!
Thanks Robin -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jesse 1 Robinson Sent: 06 January 2017 01:40 To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: IEC141I 013-A8: how to read VS data sets? Like Walt, I'm skeptical of the assertion that a spool data set is VS, where 'S' means 'spanned'. Spanned records are extremely rare in MVS. The only use for them I've ever come across is MANx SMF, which I believe predates dirt. Most standard utilities fail when opened to V(B)S records. Only IFASMFDP can read SMF data, and the output from that is ordinary VB. SAPI should be able to handle any spool data set. OTOH I've never coded anything for SAPI; we use VPS (Levi, Ray, Shoup) to extract spool data and ship it to network printers. Likewise, SDSF or equivalent ISV product can handle spool data sets whether created as V or F. SDSF now has a Rexx interface that makes it very usable for processing spool files. FWIW it was once possible to utilize JES2 interfaces to read spool data sets directly. That ability evaporated a long, long time ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
