IBM Mainframe Forum

Dear dick scherrer..
I am having confusion can we take more than one fields of ksds as a key...

Example.

S.no Name Rollno SSn Pin
Like i want to take key on sno, rollno and pin... can it is possilbe.....
As i know ksds has one primary key and other alternate key. bt Restriction is that we can not use alternate key.




Regards
Deepak kumar

As long as the fields are contiguous in the file, you can create a primary KSDS key from them. If the fields are not contiguous, you cannot create a KSDS key from them.

thanks for reply

@robert sample
can you show me a example.

Untested code:and in your IDCAMS DEFINE, you would put KEYS(19 0) since you are defining a 19-byte key starting in the first byte. As I stated earlier, if you have fields intermingled between SNO, ROLLNO, and PIN then you either have to physically change the file so the key fields are contiguous as I show or accept that you CANNOT create a VSAM file from that data using those fields for your key -- one or the other.

Hello,

Something that is very often done is to locate the field(s) for the key at the beginning of the record. Then follow with the remainder of the fields (as Robert has done)

Thanks dick

bt can it is possible to take key like below.
1 field, 3 field, 6 field

means key is not contiguous.

No. See Robert's first response.

I guess knowledge of what a VSAM key is was missing in the File Design.