SPLICE examples

SPLICE normally requires reformatting the records of two or more data sets so they can be joined, so complete JCL examples are shown in this section to illustrate the suggested techniques. These techniques and others can be employed with SPLICE to perform a variety of tasks.

Because SPLICE overlays the WITH fields from the overlay record to the base record using matching ON fields, it's usually necessary to do some initial setup before using SPLICE, to ensure that:

the ON fields are in the same positions in the base and overlay records
the WITH fields in the overlay records are in the positions they will occupy in the base records
the base records and overlay records are the same length. This is always required for fixed-length records, and is required for variable-length records unless VLENMAX or VLENOVLY is specified.

For optimum efficiency, it is also a good idea to remove any records that are not needed for the SPLICE operation as part of the initial setup before the SPLICE operation, by using appropriate INCLUDE or OMIT statements.