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z/OS 1.10 Features of interest

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Steve Comstock

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Aug 19, 2008, 3:22:19 PM8/19/08

This past several weeks, I've been updating all the
courses I'm responsible for to reflect changes brought
about by z/OS 1.10 in each course's subject area.

Actually, z/OS 1.10, HLASM 1.6, and the new z10 machines
are all converging at about this time.

Since most folks don't get a chance to explore the new
features, I thought I'd list the features introduced in
these areas that I think might be of interest to applications
programmers. (This is actually my third annual such list.)

The usefulness of any particular feature will vary from
person to person, of course; I figure if you see something
that looks helpful to you that you can check the docs
(or, of course, schedule a class!)

_For the Assembler programmer in you..._

* z10 machines introduced a new raft of instructions,
and HLASM 1.6 has new extended mnemonics to support
the compare-and-branch instructions. (These new
mnemonics are documented in the POO, not the HLASM
language reference or programming guides.)

* HLASM also has a feature called "mnemoic tagging" so
you can specify if an opcode is intended to be an
instruction or a macro invocation, in case you have
macro names that collide with new instruction
mnemonics.

append :ASM or :MAC to the opcode field:

BLXP:ASM - would be an instruction
BLXP:MAC - would be a macro invocation

* Assembler PARMs include
MACHINE(ZSERIES-3) = MACHINE(ZS3) = OPTABLE(ZS3) - z9 instructions
MACHINE(ZSERIES-4) = MACHINE(ZS4) = OPTABLE(ZS4) - z10 instructions

WORKFILE - if not enough room to Assemble in storage, use SYSUT1 file
NOWORKFILE - only Assemble in storage (not clear what happens then
if not enough room in storage to do an Assembly)

* New QY type to support 20-bit displacements

OFF1 DC QY(FLDA) - always a 3 byte field

* IARCP64 - new 64-bit cell pool services
* IARST64 - new 64-bit get / free services

Note: these writeups are carelessly done, and
the examples are done by someone who does
not understand the importance of using a
monospace font for Assembler code, so that
continuations line up correctly

[Discussed in "z/OS Assembler for Applications Programmers"
which has grown from a 3 day class to a 3.5 day class.]

_Various interesting developments_

* Big thing here is EAV (Extended Address Volumes)
which expand the capacity of DASD volumes past
65,520 cylinders; for z/OS 1.10, max is set at
262,668 cylinders

* VSAM buffers are now allocated above the line by default

* You can use pass phrases insted of passwords. The docs
are a little confusing here. It looks like the design
point allows a 255 byte length string but that TSO logon
only supports a 100 byte string.

* Unicode services now supports UTF-32 (code page 1232)

* SDSF now supports JES3 as well as JES2

[Above points discussed in various courses, where relevant.]

_TSO, CLIST, REXX, ISPF/Dialog Manager:_

* TSO: see comments about pass phrases above

* ISPF: on Primary Option Menu panel, ISPF version 6.0
means the version of ISPF shipped with z/OS 1.10

* ISPF: SWAPBAR command builds a line at the bottom of
your screen with point-and-shoot entries for each
split screen you have going

[Above two points discussed in various ISPF courses]

* ISPF: UDLIST command builds a UNIX directory
list similar to DSLIST for standard MVS files.
For example: ==> udlist
provides a fill-in-the-blank panel where you
can enter, say, '/u/scomsto/testone' and you
would see a list of all the files in this
directory in the format of a 3.17 list

Note: cannot say ==> udlist '/u/scomsto/testone'
directly because ISPF capitalizes operands on
a command line

[Discussed in "Introduction to UNIX on z/OS"]

* New callable service, DIRLIST, builds a 3.17-like display panel; you
may pass your own customized panel or use the default display

[Discussed in "Developing Dialog Manager Applications in z/OS"]

* ISPF: From a 3.17 type list, you can enter line
commands EA, BA, VA to Edit ASCII, Browse ASCII,
or View ASCII; RA to add to personal data set list

[Discussed in "Introduction to UNIX on z/OS"]

* ISPF Client Gateway - interface between TSO, ISPF,
and a browser

* New line commands allow multiple destinations of lines to be moved,
copied,
or inserted from external sources

AK, BK, OK, OOK

Example: indicate you want to copy 3 lines in the usual way:

cc0300 line....
000400 line....
00cc00 line....

then indicate multiple places to copy those lines:

ak2000 data......
.
.
.
ak20700 data.....
.
.
.
a021000 data.....
---- notice the final destination does not have the 'k'
(that is, the physically last target line)

* LMDDISP service can display expiration date or last-referenced date
EXDATE({YES|NO})

* DSLIST (3.4) - total display view displays expiration date or
last-referenced date; controlled by DSLIST Settings in options menu

* DSLIST - for data set list, can execute block line commands

_Program Binder_

* Supports QY type in RLD

* Binder COMPAT can be specified as ZOSV1R10; ZOSV1R8,
ZOSV1R9, and ZOSV1R10 are now considered "variants" of
PM5 output format
[discussed in "Secrets of Inter-Language Communication
in z/OS"]

_Language Environment (LE)_

* Restriction that CEEROPT only applies to CICS or IMS w/o LRR is removed
- specify parmlib member that states if CEEROPT applies to ALL or COMPAT;
if you specify ALL, CEEROPT parms are merged in with runtime parms
in batch as well as TSO, CICS, LRR environment; order of precedence
is after invocation parms before operator command parms

_z/OS UNIX System Services_

* submit - new shell command to submit JCL

[Discussed in "Introduction to UNIX on z/OS"]

* as command, new flag: I (upper case 'eye')
-I name
name is a PDS/E or UNIX directory where macro definitions
should be looked for; this name is prepended to the default
concatenation; may specify more than one occurrence of this flag

the default data sets are CEE.SCEEMAC, SYS1.MACLIB, and SYS1.MODGEN

you may override the defaults by using _AS_MACLIB, for example:
export _AS_MACLIB="SCOMSTO.TR.PDS:STNT329.TRAIN.PDSE"

[Discussed in "Developing Applications for z/OS UNIX"]

_C/C++ compiler_

* NOARGPARSE compiler option is ignored by programs started from
the shell or BPXBATCH or by programs that use spawn() or exec()

And, of course, all languages references to Assembler,
COBOL, PL/I, and other products we train on, are current
with their release level.

Do your other course authors keep this current?

Kind regards,

-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.

303-393-8716
_http://www.trainersfriend.com_ (http://www.trainersfriend.com/)

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