IBM Mainframe Forum

Looking at P153 of this again

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pd ... &zoom=auto

It says ..BREAK(106,4,CH)-

It states that 106 means the field number of the member that it breaks, does this mean that record 106 is included at the end of the first list or beginning of the second? Also, does JCL know how many records are in each publisher i.e. in this example VALD has 10 records but WETH has 9 so JCL knew where to break?

As said elsewhere, sort does not know about fields. 106 is the column within the record and the 4 is the length so the 'field' is the 4 bytes starting at position 106 i.e bytes 106, 107, 108 and 109.
JCL does not 'know' anything about the contents of a dataset. JCL tells the operating system what program(s) you want to execute and what resources are required by said program(s). Within the program the execution is specifed by the control cards which you supply as required. Not all programs require control cards but utility programs generally do although if they are not supplied some default action may be undertaken.

I understand that fine. But what is confusing me is why in the example they broke it at 106?

Position 106 is where the field starts which contains "VALD" or "WETH". When the value of the field changes, the total ptorcessing for the previous value is done, and the heading set-up for the new value is done. Spacial cases are firstl record, no totalling, and last record, no heading set-up.

Again, records do not have fields. Records contain data. The meaning of that data, depending on the file, can change from record to record or be the same from record to record, but the only thing which tells a program that is the program itself.

They "broke it at 106" because 1) that's where one the record, of this single-record-type file, the data which indicates publoisher, in the case of this program, the break field, is and 2) 106 is the position of the field on the record not the record on the file.

Can you tell us how you have been using the document? You have some conceptual problems we need to deal with, otherwise we explain, you say "yes, I know that" then proceeed to show that you don't.

I am doing an IBM Mainframe Course which I do not want to fail! We have been given an assignment to use JCL and ICETOOL to generate various reports.