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Status Future consideration
Workspace z/OS
Categories JES2
Created by Guest
Created on Jan 10, 2024

Add SSI 82 functions to return current values of items in DEF parms

We recently dropped all direct control block access (using an offset table) in a product, switching to SSI 82 ("the supported way"). This created an issue with one customer, who was depending on the value we returned for the spool volume prefix. In their case, they are using a four-character spool volume prefix in some MASes, but in our first implementation we returned five characters from the first data item returned by SSI 82. As we removed our offset table code, we could no longer access HCT field $SPLLEN. The customer needed to modify their process to be aware of which MAS the code was running on, and set the length as appropriate.

This got me to thinking that there is a need for an SSI (new or enhanced) to return the current state of the parameters supplied in blahDEF statements and modified by $blahDEF commands. It could be added to SSI 82 as new request types, or a new SSI inspired by SSI 54. (Although SSI 54 seems like a candidate, it does not have request types, so it would require some extra work to not affect existing calls.)

Idea priority Medium