Writing MVS JCL course outline

Writing MVS JCL

Duration: 3 days

Audience: Programmers and operations support staff who need to work with JCL on a z/OS or OS/390 system

Prequisites: Good working knowledge of a mainframe editor

JCL for z/OS UNIX System Services can be included if required.

This course has been updated to z/OS V1R5.

Objectives: Top Contents

On successful completion of this course each student will be able to:

* identify commonly used JCL parameters
* correct syntax errors in job control statements
* arrange job control statements into a correct order
* code conditional JCL
* explain the significance of special DDNAMEs
* write DD statements which access datasets on disks, tapes, printers, and 'card' files
* allocate and process generation data groups
* determine, by inspecting and interpreting messages, the likely cause of errors in jobs
* use the OUTPUT statement to establish print attributes
* create in-stream and catalogued procedures
* override, nullify, and add parameters to procedures
* define and assign values to symbolic variables in procedures
* use the most common MVS utilities
* use DFSORT to sort and merge datasets

Contents: Top Objectives

Running jobs in z/OS and MVS
Overview of a job; how JES processes a job; MVS datasets and access methods; PDS and PDSE comparisons; compilation and link edit; statements: JOB, EXEC, IF, ENDIF, DD, OUTPUT, PROC, PEND, JCLLIB, INCLUDE, SET, etc.; syntax rules; JES2 control statements, executing on a different machine: JOBPARM, ROUTE, etc.

The JOB Statement
Function and format; positional parameters: accounting information, 'programmer' name; keyword parameters: CLASS, MSGCLASS, NOTIFY, REGION, MEMLIMIT, TIME, TYPRUN, etc; how jobnames are handled by TSO and the security system.

The EXEC and IF Statements
Function and format; constructing stepnames; PGM and PROC; common parameters: PARM, REGION, MEMLIMIT, TIME; use of the IEFBR14 program. Conditional tests, COND, IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF.

The DD Statement
Function and format; use of DDNAME to link program with JCL; function of the catalogs; SMS and non-SMS datasets; parameters for VSAM, printer, QSAM, tape, pds, in-stream, and generation datasets; DSN, DISP, SYSOUT, UNIT, VOL, SPACE, DCB, BLKSIZE, BLKSZLIM, CCSID, OPTCD, LABEL, DUMMY, AMP, etc; special DDNAMES: JOBLIB, STEPLIB, SYSUDUMP, SYSPRINT, SYSOUT, SYSIN, SYSLIB, SYSABOUT, etc; special techniques: concatenated datasets, temporary datasets, non-existent datasets, backwards referencing.

The OUTPUT Statement
Function and format: controlling printer output, remote printers, FCBs, special stationery, multiple copies, etc; options for retaining output in the JES dataset; parameters for TCP/IP connections; parameters for Infoprint Server.

Catalogued Procedures
Catalogued and In-stream procedures; using parameter libraries; modifying EXEC parameters; modifying DD parameters; symbolic parameters; setting defaults, PROC; handling in-stream data; JCLLIB, INCLUDE, SET.

Batch Utilities
Introduction to general format and required datasets; IEBCOPY, IEBGENER, IEBUPDTE, IEHLIST, IEHINITT, etc. SORT, IKJEFT01, DFSRRC00.

Introduction to MVS dump codes
System and User abend codes; messages on log; common failures (e.g. OC7, 806, B37).