The system property group file

The system property group file defines property groups that are available to users when they connect to a remote system. This file is generated when an administrator exports property groups for distribution to client workspaces. It is not necessary to create this file; information about its content and structure are included here for reference only.

About this task

When a user connects to a system for the first time, the Developer for z/OS® product determines whether a system property group file exists on the remote system. If so, the property groups that are defined in that file are loaded from the system file, and users see them in the Property Group Manager view. If a current property group is specified in the file, that property group is associated with the MVS Files node in the Remote Systems view. The property groups are persisted in the workspace just like the property groups the user creates. If the system property group file is updated, users are prompted to replace the property groups that were originally loaded from the system with the updated property groups.

The system property group file is propertygroups.xml and contains the following tags. It is encoded in UTF-8. For the system property group schema, see the related topics.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<PROPERTY-GROUPS>
  <PROPERTY-GROUP>
    <NAME>property group name</NAME>
	  <DESCRIPTION>property group description</DESCRIPTION>
    <APPLICATION-LANGUAGE>application language</APPLICATION-LANGUAGE>
    <CATEGORY-INSTANCE>
      <CATEGORY>category name</CATEGORY>
      <PROPERTY>
        <NAME>property name</NAME>
        <VALUE>property value</VALUE>
      </PROPERTY>
    </CATEGORY-INSTANCE>
  </PROPERTY-GROUP>
</PROPERTY-GROUPS>

<PROPERTY-GROUPS>: Contains one or more <PROPERTY-GROUP> tags.
<PROPERTY-GROUP>: Defines a property group and the property categories for the group. This tag can contain one <NAME> tag, one <DESCRIPTION> tag, and one or more <CATEGORY-INSTANCE> tags.
<NAME>: Specify the name of the property group, such as COBOL property group.
<DESCRIPTION>: A description of the property group, such as Contains properties for compiling COBOL programs to run in debug mode. This tag is optional.
<APPLICATION-LANGUAGE>: Specify the application language, such as "COBOL" or "PL/I". This tag is optional.
<CATEGORY-INSTANCE>: Specify the property categories to be included in the property group. This tag can contain one <NAME> tag and one or more <PROPERTY> tags.
<CATEGORY>: Specify the name of a property category to include in the property group. See the Related References for a list of valid category names.
<PROPERTY>: Specify one or more property <NAME> and <VALUE> pairs to include for the category. For a list of valid property names, see the related topics.