Determine what SCLM type names to use and the mapping between SCLM type names and workstation file extensions.

The recommended approach is to have a one-to-one mapping between the SCLM type and the workstation extension. In addition to the type-to-extension mapping, SCLM needs to know the format of the data within each type (ASCII text or binary). To avoid having to define a mapping for each type, use something in the type name that indicates the format of the data. For example, add BIN to the workstation extension to create the SCLM type names for types that will contain binary data. This will minimize the number of mapping definitions for the ACTINFO file, because the wildcard character can be used to define a pattern in the type and extension names.

Another approach is to merge several workstation extensions into the same SCLM type. In this case, the workstation file names without the extension must be unique. The drawback of this approach is that after the files are combined into one SCLM type, they lose their individual extensions. The mapping is from the type to the workstation. SCLM does not know what a file was once called on the workstation. Only one extension can be defined for each type. This means that when the files are combined, SCLM will use the same extension for all of them when transferring them from or to the workstation. This may or may not be a problem, depending on the type of data combined. It would not be a good idea, for example, to combine C++ header files with H and HPP extensions into the same SCLM type, because the C++ source members might include header files with one or both of those extensions and would not find them if the extensions were changed. There might be other situations where the loss of the extension identity wouldn't matter.

Workstation file names, excluding the paths and extensions, must be valid ISPF PDS member names. Workstation file names can be in uppercase, lowercase, or have initial capital followed by lowercase letters. This mapping is specified using the WSCASE keyword in the ACTINFO file.