PDS1 THE CHALLENGE BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Files for Miles

In z/OS, data is typically organized in structures called Data
Sets. The concept is similar to the way you use files and folders Make sure your Visual Studio
on your personal computer, with a few very important Code environment is all set up
differences. and connected to the z/OS
Getting comfy with Data Sets and Members system. Other than that, nothing
In this challenge, you’ll perform some basic operations around else is required!
Data Sets and Members, and when you’re done, you’ll run a job
9 steps 45 minutes to process some of those data set members.

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1. SET THE HLQ FILTER 2. SHOW DATA ATTRIBUTES 3. PLAYING FAVORITES

Click on the magnifying glass icon next to your connection Right-click on any data set (folder icon) and select Show Data When you hold your mouse over any data set or member, a Star
profile under Data Sets. This will allow you to set your High Set Attributes. This will show you all there is to know about icon shows up to the right of its name (shown here in the red
Level Qualifier (HLQ) filter. It’s a way of telling VS Code to only how the data set was created, including many fields that circle). Clicking this lets you mark it as a Favorite, so it show up
show you data sets that match this filter. probably don’t make much sense to you right now (and that’s at the top of your Data Set view.
ok!)
In the window that pops up, enter your userid, which should In the screenshot above, I've already marked my INPUT and
be something like Z12345. JCL data sets as favorites, and I can click the star to mark
Z99999.OUTPUT as a favorite as well. Try this with your WORK
data set, as you'll be using it in upcoming challenges.

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PDS1 Getting comfy with Data Sets and Members

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4. SWITCH THE HLQ FILTER 5. FIND THE DATA SET 6. COPY AND PASTE
Use the HLQ filter again and set it to MTM2020.PUBLIC.* Inspect the data set attributes of the data sets you find in here
Right-click on the PDSPART1 data set member and select
This is where a lot of the data sets we’ve pre-made for you and find the one with the ‘vols’ attribute of VPWRKZ. This means
Copy. Then right-click on your WORK data set, which you
reside. You’ll be copying a lot of content from here, so if you that the data for it is stored on a storage device with the name of
favorited earlier, and select Paste. When prompted to give it a
find yourself using any of these data sets repeatedly (like VPWRKZ.
name, give it the same name it had before, PDSPART1.
MTM2020.PUBLIC.INPUT) you may want to mark those as
favorites. You may find other data on this volume, but there’s only one
Do the same for PDSPART2, giving it the name PDSPART2.
MTM2020.PUBLIC data set on it. Within this data set, you should
find a few other members, which you’ll use in the upcoming
Finally, look in the MTM2020.PUBLIC.JCL data set for
steps.
PDS1CCAT. Copy that into your WORK data set. When you are
done, you should have something similar to the screenshot in
Step 7 in your WORK data set.
“THIS SEEMS KIND OF SIMPLE. AM I MISSING SOMETHING?
We’re purposely starting out with the basics of data sets and members because it’s very easy to
make inaccurate assumptions about them which will wind up hurting you later on. While they’re
represented as folders and files in VS Code, a data set is actually a file with a record organization
to it.

Some data sets contain sequential data, meaning the records in them are one right after the other,
like a big list. Others have an index of data which points to individual records, which is what we’re
using here. These are called Partitioned Data Sets, hence the PDS. There are also application- Want to talk? Join our Slack Tweet about it!
specific data sets called VSAM. Each type is optimized to perform best for its specific purpose. ibm.biz/mtm_slack #MasterTheMainframe
PDS1 Getting comfy with Data Sets and Members

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7. RUN THAT JOB 8. CHECK OUT THE OUTPUT 9. GIVE IT A NEW NAME
Click on the newly-created member, PDS1OUT. Was it what
Right-click on the PDS1CCAT member from your own you expected in Step 6? The PDS1CCAT job used those two Right-click on the PDS1OUT member and select Rename. Give
ZXXXXX.WORK data set (not the MTM2020 one) and select members as input and concatenated, or joined, them it the name of RECIPE. This will make it easier to find later, and
“Submit Job”. This will run the code within the member. This together. is required for the system to mark this challenge as complete.
may take a few seconds.
Now that you know the purpose of the job you ran, now might That’s it! If you’ve got a ZXXXXX.WORK(RECIPE) with
After a few moments, collapse the WORK folder using the be a good time to review it and see how that code found your instructions in it for making some tasty vegetarian tacos, go
small arrow to the left of it, and then re-expand it. This will data set members and took the steps necessary to build the into MTM2020.PUBLIC.JCL and look for a member named CHK.
cause VS Code to refresh the contents of the PDS, where you output. Then right-click on it and select "Submit Job" to send it for
should see a brand new member created, called PDS1OUT. validation.

FILE THAT ONE UNDER “FINISHED” NEXT UP…

If PDS1 was a breeze, maybe you
You’re a natural at this. We hope you found working with should follow that up with PDS2.
files on z/OS easy and intuitive. For more information about No matter what you do on IBM Z,
Data Sets on z/OS check out this reference. you’ll need a solid handle on
working with data sets and
Data Sets can be used to store just about anything on Z, members, so a solid foundation
including lists, source code, job output, and as you saw there will definitely come in
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