GIMZIP processing

The GIMZIP service routine processes the following data structures as input to create GIMZIP packages:

sequential data sets
partitioned (PDS and PDSE) data sets
VSAM data sets
UNIX files
UNIX directory files

The packages produced are stored in the package directory in a UNIX file system. The package directory is specified by the SMPDIR DD statement.

GIMZIP collects various attributes for the input data sets and files specified in the package control tags. These attributes, along with portable images of the input data sets, are temporarily stored in a UNIX file system. These images are then archived and compressed to create archive files. Each GIMZIP package will contain one or more archive files.

For each package there are two additional files:

The package attribute file, which describes the contents of the package itself. The package attribute file identifies the archives for a package and contains a hash value for each archive within the package. The hash value for each archive is used for data integrity purposes and can be checked when the original data set is recreated from the archive using the GIMUNZIP service routine.
An extensible stylesheet language (XSL) file, which describes how to format the information found in the package attribute file. The XSL file is used for rendering (displaying on a browser) the package attribute file.