A correct quote.  I know about that bit.  I will rephrase my incorrect and 
dogmatic statement:  "Keyed searches cannot be executed within a Locate Record 
Domain." 
  
I know of no Locate Record or Locate Record Extended command operation that 
involves key field comparisons.  They all involve either reading or writing 
whole DASD records (count, key, and data), groups of  whole records, whole 
tracks, or groups of  whole tracks (and not  always contiguous).  When a 
channel program segment begins with a LR or a LRE (aka LRX) command, then that 
channel program begins operating in what is called a Locate Record Domain.  
When the end of that domain is reached, the channel program is no longer 
operating within a Locate Record domain.  This is significant because many 
other sections of the IBM Control Unit Reference books describe the details of 
other types of  operations (reads, writes, multi-track operations, etc.) in 
terms of whether the channel program is within a Locate Record Domain or not.  
It is especially significant when multi-track operations are occurring. 
  
Over the years I began referring to operating "within a LRD" (IBM's phrase) as 
"being in ECKD mode" (my sloppy phrase), and I didn't inform the rest of the 
world of my private PTF on the terminology. 
  
Special search key mode is not the same as being within a Locate Record Domain. 
 Special search key mode involves not having to refetch the key value from 
central storage for each comparison operation with each new key field 
discovered on the track, whether those keys are in cache storage already or 
not. 
  
The use of the special search key mode bit requires that the immediate driver 
of the I/O request be authorized.  Thus DB2 can use this bit, but an 
unauthorized QSAM application cannot when doing its QSAM macros.  If the file 
is ever accessed directly by unauthorized applications, then the key value in 
central storage will be refetched for each new key comparison taking place in 
the control unit, in which case it should be allocated on a cylinder boundary 
for a small performance improvement  But if it is only ever accessed by DB2 or 
any other authorized program, then it doesn't need to begin on a cylinder 
boundary for purposes of the  special search key mode consideration.  My term 
"directly" means that the applications does its own OPEN, GET, READ, EXCP, 
etc., rather than invoke another component, such as DB2, to do the I/O 
operations, which I would probably choose to characterize as the application's 
doing its I/O indirectly by way of using the authorized DB2 product.  Doing an 
I/O "directly" or "indirectly" through another address space, access method, 
driver, etc., is more of my own private sloppy terminology. 
  
Bill Fairchild 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)" <[email protected]> 
To: [email protected] 
Sent: Sunday, September 7, 2014 12:07:59 AM 
Subject: Re: Allocation in CYLinder increments (UNCLASSIFIED) 

In <[email protected]>, on 
09/05/2014 
   at 06:02 PM, DASDBILL2 <[email protected]> said: 

>True for some value of "basically", but not true always.  Keyed 
>searches cannot be executed in ECKD mode, 

>From IBM Enterprise Storage ServerA  IBM System/390 Command Reference 
2105 Models E10, E20, F10, and F20. SC26-7298-01, p. 28: 

10 Special Search Key Mode 
    Byte 7, bits 0, 1, when set to '10', indicate that Search Key 
    operations may be carried out in Special Search Key mode. 
    Restrictions on the use of this mode are given below. 

    By setting special search key mode, the software is responsible 
    for ensuring: 
     1. That any search CCW that is encountered be in a search TIC 
        loop 
     2. That the search TIC loop consists of: 
          * Optionally a single Read Count command (may be 
            multi-track). 
          * A single Search Key command (may be multi-track, 
            Search Key Equal, Search Key High, or Search Key Equal 
            or High). 
          * TIC 
          * Nothing else 
     3. Data length of search key CCW must equal key length for all 
        records to be searched. 

    Warning: Failure to follow these rules when in Special Search 
    Key mode may yield unpredictable and inconsistent results. 
  
-- 
     Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT 
     ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html> 
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress. 
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003) 

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