IBM MTM 2019: Part Two – Challenge #02

Bonjour!

Today we’re keeping it classy, James. To the batcave! Not really, I’m already in my programmers’ cave. I should clean out the cobwebs for sure, anyway let’s get back to master the mainframe contest!

If you’re unfamiliar with the SDSF display, you can watch this video made by Mr. Paul Newton. You should, it’s a big help! It’s only 7 minutes short.

Learn a few System Display and Search Facility, SDSF, basics

IBM Master the Mainframe Part Two – Challenge #02

Enter sd as primary commannd from the ISPF menu to navigate to the SDSF menu.

From the SDSF Menu we enter the primary command prefix * ; owner z##### ; st. The semicolon in the command is used to stack commands, the machine will execute the commands in the order we send.

• First it displays all jobnames using prefix *.
• Then it limits the list to our user only using owner z#####.
• Then it displays all statusses using st.

After the system presents us the list we need to enter tso submit ‘zos.public.jcl(pgm01a)’. We use ‘c’ as the jobname suffix/jobname character. When you see *** it means the system is waiting for you to press enter.

Now when viewing the list we know the following;

• Any JobID beginning with TSU is a Time Sharing session, your TSO interactive session.
• Any JobID beginning with JOB is a background JOB previously submitted.
• Action characters can be entered in the NP column.
• If several of the same jobnames exist then pick the one with the highest JobID number.

We enter a question mark ‘?’ next to our job entry to view its details. Mine was JOB08447.

The most important member of this ‘data set’ is SYSOUT. Navigate to it using tab and enter ‘s’ in the NP column to select it for viewing.

Now we can view the output.

Press F3 or enter end as primary command to return to the previous display. To continue we need to copy this output to our own output data set. This is done by using the xdc line command.

Next to SYSOUT we enter xdc in the NP column. The system will ask us where to copy the data to.

• data set name: p2.output
• Member  to use: #02
• Disposition: SHR

If you see PRINT CLOSED 10 LINE in the upper right area of the display then that means the print action is complete.

Let’s go back to the JOBNAMEs list by pressing F3. Next to every JobID with PRINT as Queue status we enter p as line command. p stands for purge.

Then press enter to delete the outputs.

Verify the completion of Part Two – Challenge #02

Again we use the same commands as we did to verify the completion of challenge #01 in part two.

• dslist p2.output as primary command.
• b line command next to Z#####.P2.OUTPUT
• s line command next to #02

Now we should see the output we had before.

And I have! Although I’m not sure what the ‘1’ is doing there? There’s also some extra whitespace? How?

Whitespace

Do you have whitespace? Funny, it also means unused disk space. Tell me all about your disk space!