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[haqshaik]

Hi All,
Can we convert the FB file format to a VBS file format(Variable Block Spanned) using DFSORT or any other utility? I have used in past DFSORT to convert from FB to VB format.

Any thoughts will be hlpful.

Thanks,
Salauddin

[haqshaik]

Further adding to my post, I have a data in a Flat file of FB format. I need to load the data into a queue using CSQUTIL utility. This utility expects the data to be of VBS format and the rec length needs to be 32768.
I am trying to convert the file from FB to the VBS format with lrecl 32,768.
I am using outfil outrect option with FTOV. I am trying to specify the lrecl of 32,768 in the DCB parameter for the LRECL. But I am getting a message that I have crossed the max lenght.
If this is true, then a VBS file with lrecl of 32,768 can not be created by using either IEBGENER or IDCAMS.
I have tried out the outrec format option and made the lrecl equivalent to 32,768 by specifying the 31,976X and the rest is the data.
The DFOSRT job is abending.

I worte a COBOL program which puts a message into the queue. I copied the data from the queue into a file. The file created is of VBS and lrecl is 32,768. I have delted /flush out data from the queue. I have loaded the queue from the file created through the cobol program , using the CSQUTIL utility. This time, data has been loaded in the queue.
VBS file can be created by specifying the DCB parameters in the DFSORT Job. The files created through this which are not having a length of 32, 768, while using in CSQUTIL utility to load the data into the queue , the utility is abending.

Any thoughts would be helpful..

Thanks,
Salauddin

[Frank Yaeger]

DFSORT only supports an LRECL up to 32767 for VBS files, and cannot create an output file with an LRECL of 32768.
_________________
Frank Yaeger - DFSORT Development Team (IBM)
Specialties: JOINKEYS, FINDREP, WHEN=GROUP, ICETOOL, Symbols, Migration
DFSORT is on the Web at:
www.ibm.com/storage/dfsort

[haqshaik]

Frank,
Thanks for you reply. I was trying to create a VBS file of lrecl 32767.
Here are the messges in the sysout dd name.

[Frank Yaeger]

Yes, there are limits. They are documented in "z/OS DFSORT Application Programming Guide" which you can access online from:

www.ibm.com/servers/storage/support/software/sort/mvs/srtmpub.html

The limit for n in nX is 4095. The limit for c in c: is 32752.

This will work, but do you really want every one of your output records to be 32767 bytes long? If not, you could add VLTRIM=X'40' to remove the trailing blanks.

[Bill Dennis]

A queue can accept records of varying size. Why pad the record with blanks?
_________________
Regards,
Bill Dennis

Disclaimer: My comments on this foorum are my own and do not represent the opinions or suggestions of any other person or business entity.

[haqshaik]

Thanks Frank for your Reply.

Bill, As you said, a queue will accept message of any varying size, if you are writing it through the MQM API. if the queue needs to be loaded from a file it expects a file of VBS format and a record length of 32768, irrespective of the message size.
if the utility CSQUTIL run once to copy the messages from the queue , though the queue is empty, one record will be written to the output file. I am not sure what control information it will have. I am not able to download to a falt file to see the message.

I might as well wrong in making an assumption that if I could make a record of 32768, the message can be loaded into the queue, as the format is VBS. The last two bytes of RDW of VBS format keeps track of the start of the segment and end of the segment. It is hard to arrive at a relation between the number of records of length 32768 and the number of messages (Again varies wiht the size of the message).

I was thinking of loading the messages into queue with out using the MQM API's and using purly utilities, which gives out a flexibility of loading the queues in any environment. These are my thoughts and not neccessariliy be true. If am worng, Please correct me.

Once again Thanks to Frank and Bill.

Thanks,
Salauddin