On Sun, 7 Jan 2024 13:59:09 -0600, Steve Beaver wrote: >The simplest path on this discussion is to try it in batch or ispf. The only >other way is in HLASM with the STOW macro > I've tried it with STOW. It likes any 8 bytes: lower case, embedded spaces, NULs, etc. And I consider it improper for middleware (TSO, JCL, ...) to impose syntactic restrictipns beyond those enforced by the primitives. Apostrophes should be your friend.
>> On Jan 7, 2024, at 13:55, Radoslaw Skorupka wrote: >> >> W dniu 07.01.2024 o 19:02, Phil Smith III pisze: >>> Paul Gilmartin wrote, in part, in answer to "Why can't a data set name >>> element start with a digit": >>>> Left-to-right lexical analyzer that treats anything beginning with a digit >>>> as a number. >>> I'm willing to believe this, but am unclear on why whatever is parsing a >>> DSN would care whether it's a number or not. E.g.: >>> //SYSIN DD DISP=SHR,DSN=1.2.3 >>> >>> Why would it care that it's a digit? The start of a non-initial DSN element >>> is the thing after a period, so it doesn't matter there. >>> The period is not part of the DSN element. Its a separator. Perhaps my imaginary lexical analyzer returns numbers in fixed-point format; other things as strings. Why is LRECL=080 acceptable but BUFNO=080 a syntax error? >>> My guess is something planned/considered that never happened, or just a >>> mistake late on a Sunday afternoon in 1962. >> Storage was expensive then. >> The "8 characters rule" is widely used in z/OS and mainframe world. >> Why? >> I heard an explanation for that. However it was approx. 25 years ago I did >> not fully understand it. Since at the time the rule was enough for me, I >> didn't ask. It was something related to assembler, as far as I remember. >> Storage was expensive then. A UNIX historian recalls an era when directory entries were 16 bytes: file names were limited to 14 and I-numbers to 65535. UNIX got better; MVS didn't. It's the curse of Assembler compatibility with inadequate parameterization in copybooks. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
