Support for VSAM processing in OS/VS COBOL Release 2 and in the OS/VS COBOL compatibility library routines is consistent with the I/O language specified in the COBOL standard, American National Standard COBOL, X3.23-1974. However, OS/VS QSAM and VSAM support in OS/VS COBOL Release 1 is not consistent with the standard.

File status

The FILE STATUS clause is optional. Specifying FILE STATUS for a VSAM file lets you monitor the status of the file's I/O operations by testing the FILE STATUS values. Code the FILE STATUS clause for all appropriate files and test the FILE STATUS (status key) after each input/output statement, including the OPEN statement. FILE STATUS detects error conditions so you can handle them before processing continues.

If you do not specify FILE STATUS and test for the appropriate status key values, you might get undetected errors and erroneous program results.

User abends

In certain error situations during VSAM file processing, Release 1 of the OS/VS COBOL library modules forced user abends during program execution. OS/VS COBOL Release 2 support eliminated four of these user abends. In place of the abends, a FILE STATUS value is set when an I/O operation fails, and execution continues.

Status key values are set to 90, 93, 95, or 95 rather than the forced USER ABEND 0100, 0201, 0303, or 0304, respectively. The program should test the status key value after each I/O operation to make sure its successful completion. OS/VS COBOL Release 2 support also no longer issues the object-time message 'IKF302I'. In place of this message, the FILE STATUS is set to a value of 30.

Because some users might depend on the previous abends and message, you can apply superzaps as user modifications to continue to force USER ABEND 0100, 0201, 0303, or 0304, and continue to force message IKF302I. The IGZWZA1 USERMOD in the IGZWZAP sample job contains the superzaps to do this.