Scratching or Renaming a Data Set or Member

IEHPROGM can be used to scratch the following data sets from a DASD volume or volumes:

Sequential, BDAM, or partitioned data sets or PDSE. They can be data sets that are named by the operating system.
Members of a partitioned data set.
A temporary VSAM data set.

A data set is considered scratched when its data set control block is removed from the volume table of contents (VTOC) of the volume on which it resides; its space is made available for reallocation.

A member is considered scratched when its name is removed from the directory of the partitioned data set in which it is contained.

For partitioned data sets that are not PDSEs, the space occupied by a scratched member is not available for reallocation until the partitioned data set is scratched or compressed. (When scratching a member of a partitioned data set, all aliases of that member should also be removed from the directory.)

On SCRATCH requests, the presence of the PURGE or NOPURGE keyword may be ignored for SMS managed data sets. The use of the PURGE and NOPURGE keywords is unchanged for non-SMS managed data sets.

When OVRD_EXPDT(NO) is specified in the IGDSMSxx member of SYS1.PARMLIB or the OVRD_EXPDT keyword is not specified, the PURGE and NOPURGE keywords are honored.
When OVRD_EXPDT(YES) is specified in the IGDSMSxx member of SYS1.PARMLIB, the PURGE and NOPURGE keywords are not honored. The data set is always deleted, whether or not it has expired. This is true only if the data set is a DASD data set and SMS managed.

When scratching or renaming a data set managed by the Storage Management Subsystem (SMS), the device type and volumes list on the VOL parameter must reflect the volume actually allocated to the data set. This is a restriction for both SMS and non-SMS managed data sets. However, when you specify a volume when allocating an SMS-managed data set, SMS will not automatically allocate the data set on that volume.

When scratching an SMS-managed data set, IEHPROGM will uncatalog that data set.

You should use IDCAMS DELETE VR to delete uncataloged data sets on SMS managed volumes. If you attempt to scratch and uncataloged data set on an SMS-managed volume, IEHPROGM will ONLY scratch (an uncatalog) a cataloged version of the data set, if one exists. When the specified volume in IEHPROGM is found to be SMS managed, a Catalog locate is used to identify a volume containing the data. The Catalog locate may return a different volume than specified in IEHPROGM resulting in the wrong data set to be scratched.

When scratching or renaming a data set the device type and volumes list on the VOL parameter must reflect the volume actually allocated to the data set.

IEHPROGM will not scratch the data set containing the index for an indexed VTOC.

IEHPROGM can be used to rename a data set or member that resides on a DASD volume. In addition, the program can be used to change any member aliases.

When renaming an SMS-managed data set, IEHPROGM will uncatalog the data set and then catalog the data set under its new name in the appropriate catalog. If uncataloging cannot be done, because of an alias, IEHPROGM will not rename the data set.

Temporary VSAM data sets can be scratched using SCRATCH VTOC,SYS.

If RACF is active, ALTER authorization is required to scratch a RACF-defined data set, or rename a data set, and UPDATE authorization is required to scratch or rename a member of a partitioned data set.

Note: RACF, an IBM security package, will not allow you to rename a data set that is covered only by a generic profile to a name that will not be covered by a generic profile because this would allow you to unprotect the data set.