Establishing a name pattern

Establishing the name pattern for the dump data sets is accomplished by the DUMPDS NAME= command. Names must conform to standard data set naming conventions and are limited to 44 characters, including periods used as delimiters between qualifiers. For a complete description, see z/OS DFSMS Using Data Sets. To allow meaningful names for the dump data sets, several symbols are provided that are resolved when the dump data is captured in virtual storage. For a complete list of the symbols you can use, see the explanation of DUMPDS NAME= in z/OS MVS System Commands.

When determining the pattern for the dump data set names, consider any automation tools you may have at your installation that work on dump data sets. Also, the automatic allocation function requires you to include the &SEQ. sequence number symbol in your data set name pattern to guarantee unique data set names. If you do not use the sequence number, the system rejects the name pattern with message IEE855I and the previous name pattern remains in effect.

By default, the system uses one of three name patterns. The system typically uses the normal pattern SYS1.DUMP.D&DATE..T&TIME..&SYSNAME..S&SEQ;. The system automatically uses S&SYSNAME convention when the system name begins with numeric and is less than 8 characters long. For example:

SYS1.DUMP.D&YYMMDD..T&HHMMSS..S&SYSNAME..S&SEQ. or
SYS1.DUMP.D&YYMMDD..T&HHMMSS..S&SYSNAME(2&colon.8)..S&SEQ when the system name begins with numeric and is 8 characters long.

Figure 1 describes the default name pattern.

Figure 1. Default name pattern for automatically allocated dump data set

SYS1 . DUMP . D &DATE. . T &TIME. . &SYSNAME. . S &SEQ.
─┬── │ ─┬── │ │ ──┬─── │ │ ──┬─── │ ───┬───── │ │ ──┬──
 │  ┌┘  │   │ │   │    │ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ ┌─┘   │ │   │    │ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ┌──┘ │   │    │ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  │┌───┘   │    │ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  ┌────┘    │ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ┌─────┘ │   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   │┌──────┘   │    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  ┌───────┘    │    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   ┌────────┘    │      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   │   ┌─────────┘      │ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   │   │   ┌────────────┘ │   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   │   │   │┌─────────────┘   │
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   │   │   ││  ┌──────────────┘
 │  │ │  ││  │   ││  │   │   │   ││  │
 ↓  ↓ ↓  ↓↓  ↓   ↓↓  ↓   ↓   ↓   ↓↓  ↓
SYS1.DUMP.D930428.T110113.SYSTEM1.S00000

Note: While the default data sets begin with a high-level qualifier of SYS1, this convention is no longer a requirement for data sets named by your installation.

Notice that the symbols are resolved into date, time, and sequence numerics, so they are preceded by an alphabetic character to conform to MVS™ data set name requirements. Also, the symbol starts with an ampersand (&) and ends with a period (.), resulting in a name pattern that has double periods when a symbol finishes a qualifier. One period ends the symbol, and the second serves as the delimiter between qualifiers of the generated data set name.