IBM Mainframe Forum

Hello,

i can't modify a job in TWS et i hvae this message :



My jcl have 3000 records. What is the limit please ?

Thanks for your help.

It is not the number of records, but the length of at least one of them.

The message tells you to contact your System's Programmer. I'd do that. Site specific, so we won't know your answer.

I don't think so.

When i tryed whith a jcl which contain 2050 records, it works.

But with more records in the jcl, i have the error...

EQQX274E
AN I/O REQUEST SPECIFIES TOO LARGE RECORD SIZE
Explanation:

The request to create or modify a record resulted in the record exceeding the maximum size of the VSAM record.

OK, if you know better than the message produced by the program which failed to do what you want, then fair enough.

If you want us to give you a limit to the number of records in a file based on incorrect facts, let's say "I think it works with 2050, so don't use any more than that".

Do you realise your "logic" breaks down if the 2051st record exceeds the maximum size of the VSAM record? Or the 1st, 8th, 214th etc. Basically, your logic just breaks down. One, at least, of the records in your file, through accident or design, is "exceeding the maximum size of the VSAM record". That's it. Go see your System's people.

samb01, the message tells you to contact your site support group. BillyBoyo told you to contact your site support group. Why are you refusing to take the obvious step and contact your site support group?
Your refusal to do so indicates you have a poor future in IT since being able to understand when to seek help is very important and you're unable to do so -- despite the error message AND people you consult for advice telling you what to do.

No doubt the TS has resolved his issue now, but in case anyone else stumbles upon this post I will add some notes that may be of use.

Firstly, the TS is correct in surmising that there is a maximum number of records that can be accomodated in a TWS jobcard. The message about the length of the vsam file being exceeded is a symptom of too many records, not one that is too long. In a JCL library, all records are 80 bytes.

What happens is that TWS reads in the jobcard from the appropriate PDS and holds that data in it's own internal vsam file, known as the JS file. This vsam file has one record per jobcard. So the more lines in a jobcard, the longer the length of the vsam record.

The first 80 bvtes of the JS file consist of details to identify the TWS operation, eg; application name, operation number, etc. After that, subsequent blocks of 80 bytes represent each record from the JCL library. The vsam file is defined with a maximum record length of 180,004 which allows for a maximum record count of 2,249. So, as the TS said, a job card with 3,000 records in it will cause a failure, whereas one with 2,050 will work.

Hope that helps.

Why so many lines of JCL - a job should consiste of a jobcard, maybe some routing cards, possibly JCLLIB sepcifications and and EXEC procname card. Optionally a // at the end.

Because, for good or bad reasons, not every job is converted into a proc.

I would say, in short, bad design of the product TWS and bad design of the JCL.

Yes - bad design of TWS allowing so many cards in a job although I can understand somewhat in a testing environment. But the guys who wrote it were probably used to the IBM standard (where I was) of all production being procedures.