Re: Re: IMS/DB on MVS 3.8J

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:02:26 -0500, Mike Stramba wrote:

>Here's the message I'm getting :

>IEF238A REPLY DEVICE NAME , OR 'CANCEL'

>I tried v 580,online, no effect.

Hi Mike,

The WTOR will not go away until you reply to it, no
matter which devices you vary on or off.

Usually when messages like these are issued a whole
stack of candidate devices are listed (and usually whiz
by before you can read what they are :).

Only one of the listed devices can make the WTOR go
away.  That is, there is no point replying with a device
number that is not in the list proffered by the system.

And yes, as Kevin alludes to, 4-digit device numbers
were unknown by pre-XA systems.

When XA came out, new stuff had to be implemented
so that UNIT=3350 was not interpreted as device
number 3350.  From memory it was UNIT=/3350
meant device number 3350.  Someone please correct
me if I'm wrong.

But back to your WTOR.  If 580 was a valid reply,
then I think you do not have to vary 580 online,
but merely by replying with 580 the system will
vary 580 online through a process known as
"allocation recovery" which has its own SMF
record type (type 10).

Interesting to note that where you report message
IEF238A (A for Action) modern systems use
IEF238D (D for Decision).  I must be warped.
I can almost understand that change.

Just looking ahead to your new message, if 580 is
not a valid reply you must look at the job log, or
system log to see what devices are eligible candidates.

Cheers,
Greg