ISPF Power Tools: Managing JCL With ISPF File Tailoring

Project and Program: MVS, MVS Core Technologies

Tags: Proceedings, 2017, SHARE San Jose 2017

JCL - Job Control Language - drives batch processing in the Z/OS environment.  It packages code and resource allocation statements in a way that allows processing to proceed autonomously.
JCL jobs that apply nearly-identical processing to large numbers of data inputs can lead to many semi-redundant pieces of code occupying storage.  ISPF File Tailoring (FT) is one way to let z/OS generate JCL jobs on the fly from stored templates. It also allows the developer to abstract much complexity away from the user.
The presentation addresses some of the useful traits FT shares with more generalized programming languages, including • variable substitution
• looping
• conditional branching

It also touches on FT's use of ISPF Tables
The presentation also shows examples of a programming approach that has worked for the author: • driver (REXX) gathers data via ISPF panels 
• driver hands data off to FT
• FT builds JCL jobs which are handed back to the driver 
• driver submits jobs to JES for execution
-Robert Earle Brown-US Dept of Veterans Affairs

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