Re: Minor disaster

[Paul Gilmartin]

(I'll cross-post this Reply to IBM-MAIN and ISPF-L)
On Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:23:30 -0500, Brian Westerman wrote:

>Wait, I missed the part where it was completely deleted. Sorry about that. I thought it was just overwritten.
>
"completely deleted" vs. "just overwritten" seems to be a distinction without
a difference. In either case aren't the data gone forever?

On my desktop system several applications have a File menu containing
a Revert option which displays a selection list of versions with timestamps.
ISPF designers seem to have missed the point
<https://www.ies.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/1023396766-460x345.gif>.

Revert should be a separate option from Delete, a distinction with a difference.
It should support PDSE2 members containing a mixture of versions created
with ISPF and with other applications. For versions lacking ISPF timestamps
For versions lacking ISPF timestamps the selection list should show FAMS
timestamps.


>On Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:18:45 -0500, Brian Westerman wrote:
>
>>I use PDSEGEN on z/OS 2.5 all the time and have no problem recovering old versions.
>>
>>
>>On Wed, 28 Sep 2022 07:14:17 -0500, Lionel B. Dyck wrote:
>>
>>>If these are PDSE's with generations then the question is what release of
>>>z/OS are you running? If 2.4 then the ISPF delete member selections will
>>>delete all generations along with the base member. If 2.3 or earlier then
>>>only the base (generation 0) member is deleted and the generations will
>>>remain - just not accessible.
>>>
>>>If you are z/OS 2.3, or earlier, then you can use PDSEGEN (CBTTape file 969)
>>>to see those 'ghost' generations and easily recover them.
>>>
>>>If you are z/OS 2.4 or 2.5 then hope you have HSM backups or some other
>>>backup system.
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Lennie Dymoke-Bradshaw
>>>Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 7:01 AM
>>>
>>>Aaargghhh!
>>>
>>>I just pressed "D" next to a PDSe member I was editing, instead of "S".
>>>
>>>I have generations set up for this PDSe, but I cannot see how to get to the
>>>member I just accidentally deleted.
>>>
>>>Is there a way to recover the member?
>>>
>>> <https://rsclweb.com/> https://rsclweb.com

--
gil

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[lbd...@gmail.com]

The issue of how to deal with PDSE member generations is one that I
struggled with when developing PDSEGEN. The solution that I came up with was
to allow individual generations to be deleted, which required writing a
routine to do so as the native TSO DELETE and ISPF Delete options would only
delete the base member without the generations at the time.

With PDSEGEN you always see a member list with the base member and all
generations.

With PDSEGEN you can delete the base member with a prompt informing you that
you are deleting the base and all generations, or you can delete base member
and have the -1 promoted to be the new base.

Note that once a generation is deleted that you may not recover it due to
the way the PDSE data store is architected. That is both good (never having
to compress) and bad (inability to recover a deleted element). However, I
believe this was the right decision by the developers.

Now if only the standard ISPF application had these capabilities.

Lionel B. Dyck <><
Website: https://www.lbdsoftware.com
Github: https://github.com/lbdyck

“Worry more about your character than your reputation. Character is what you
are, reputation merely what others think you are.”   - - - John Wooden