IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi I am writing a COBOL pgm to Read a PDS and fetch the member names inside the PDS for further comparision. But when I am trying to do that. I ma facing some problem.

The PDS I am trying to read is of 80 bytes -- IT0007.PMSTB.PI.TEST
Management class . . : MC3
Storage class . . . : TSOLIB
Volume serial . . . : BALP2C
Device type . . . . : 3390
Data class . . . . . : DC4
Organization . . . : PO
Record format . . . : FB
Record length . . . : 80
Block size . . . . : 32720
1st extent cylinders: 10
Secondary cylinders : 50
Data set name type : LIBRARY

When you browse thr Dataset, you see the follwing members :

VIEW IT0007.PMSTB.PI.TEST Row 00001 of 00003
Command ===> Scroll ===> CSR
Name Prompt Size Created Changed ID
_________ C0003001 0 2009/02/26 2009/02/26 12:47:00 BSQBOC
_________ C0003002 0 2009/02/26 2009/02/26 12:47:00 BSQBOC
_________ C0003003 0 2009/02/26 2009/02/26 12:47:00 BSQBOC


When I am trying to read the PDS in my Pgm, The first read gives me the following result :
ðC0003001 " " å BSQBOC C0003002 " " å BSQB

I would have expected the first read giving me the result:
ðC0003001 " " å BSQBOC

and second read should give the result:
ðC0003002 " " å BSQBOC

Can someone help me with this and let me know if there is any different approach to read the above mentioned PDS so that I get my desired results.

Regards,
Guru

Hello,

How does the code know which member to read? What is the DD statement for this input file?

I suspect that this is not a good exercise for learning. . . COBOL has no built-in function to do what i believe you want.

To read one member, specify the member name on the DD statement. If there are to be multiple members processed, concatenate them behind the DD statement for the first member.

Look here at the READPDS program. I think that may be what you want.

it would be nice if You explained exactly what You are trying to achieve ...
what You are getting is the directory content
a PDS directory can be read as a sequential file with a LRECL of 256,
but then You would have to do the deblocking to find the info of each member by Yourself,
( probably by using reference modification with a lot of redefines )

the info for a member entry is a made up of
12 bytes of fixed info - 3 bytes for the TTR, 8 bytes for the member name, 1 byte for flags and user data length
( the byte flag is divided into 3 bits of flag an 5 bits for the user data length divided by two )

managing all of this in cobol is not the best approach , so please reply to the request in line 1