Allocating storage for validation run-time message files

The data set you create for the run-time message files must be a linear VSAM data set that can be used as a data-in-virtual object. You must create one run-time file for each install message file for your application.

The amount of storage you will need to allocate for a validation run-time message file cannot be determined exactly. The amount of storage depends on the number of skeletons, the size of the skeletons, the number of substitution tokens within the skeletons, and the types of messages represented by the skeletons (single-line, multi-line, or multi-format). IBM® recommends that, for a validation run-time message file, you allocate twice the amount of storage required for the install message file you are compiling. In most cases, this storage should be adequate.

To create the data set for the run-time message files, you need to specify the DEFINE CLUSTER function of access method services (IDCAMS) with the LINEAR parameter. When you code the SHAREOPTIONS parameter for DEFINE CLUSTER, use SHAREOPTIONS (1,3). For a complete explanation of SHAREOPTIONS, see z/OS DFSMS Using Data Sets.

The following is a sample job that invokes IDCAMS to create the linear data set named SYS1.ENURMF on the volume called MMSPK1. When IDCAMS creates the data set, it is empty. Note that there is no RECORDS parameter; linear data sets do not have records.

Figure 1. Sample job to invoke IDCAMS to obtain a data set for the run-time message files

//DEFCLUS JOB  MSGLEVEL=(2,0),USER=IBMUSER
//*
//*    DEFINE DIV CLUSTER
//*
//DCLUST  EXEC PGM=IDCAMS,REGION=4096K
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*
//MMSPK1   DD UNIT=3380,VOL=SER=MMSPK1,DISP=OLD
//SYSIN    DD *
    DELETE (SYS1.ENURMF) CL PURGE
    DEFINE CLUSTER (NAME(SYS1.ENURMF) -
                    VOLUMES(MMSPK1) -
                    CYL(1 1) -
                    SHAREOPTIONS(1,3) -
                    LINEAR) -
           DATA     (NAME(SYS1.ENURMF.DATA))
/*