Tape Processing with VSE/POWER

The following VSE/POWER tape handling functions are available:

Table 1. Tape Processing with VSE/POWER
User Task	Command or JECL Statement	Refer to
Spooling LST or PUN output to tape	* $$ LST DISP=T * $$ PUN DISP=T	Spooling Output to Tape
Offloading spool entries via backup, pickup, or save	POFFLOAD BACKUP POFFLOAD PICKUP POFFLOAD SAVE	POFFLOAD BACKUP\|PICKUP\|SAVE Function
Appending/Archiving offloaded spool entries	POFFLOAD ...,APPEND	POFFLOAD APPEND and Archive Function
Restoring from offload or spool output tapes or archive tapes	POFFLOAD LOAD POFFLOAD SELECT	POFFLOAD LOAD\|SELECT Function POFFLOAD LOAD\|SELECT Function
Printing or punching offload or spool output tapes	PSTART LST,uraddr, X'tapeaddr' PSTART PUN,uraddr, X'tapeaddr'	Printing or Punching Output from Tape
Displaying contents of offload or spool output tapes	PDISPLAY entry, TAPE=tapeaddr	Processing for the PDISPLAY Tape Function
Reading jobs from SYSIN tape for input spooling	PSTART RDR,tapeaddr	Processing for the SYSIN Tape Function
Saving VSE/POWER account file to tape	PACCOUNT tapeaddr	Processing for the PACCOUNT Tape Function

Tapes are processed in three stages:

The mount and unmounting of tape(s) by OPEN (mount single tape) and CLOSE (unmount single tape) and EOV (End-Of-Volume multiple tape processing - unmount last tape and mount a new tape). This is performed either by:
- VSE/SAM (Sequential Access Method), or
- Native VSE/POWER tape support.
Labeled or unlabeled tape processing ─ the writing, reading or checking for the presence of tape labels and tape marks during OPEN/CLOSE/EOV processing.
Labeled or unlabeled tape processing is possible, supported by either VSE/SAM (Sequential Access Method) or native VSE/POWER tape support, depending on the tape function.
- VSE/POWER native ^¹ support ─ always displays a tape label (when present) on the console and requests the operator to verify what action is to take place. There is no dependency on z/VSE® Access Control protection of labeled tapes. No labels are created and/or written to tape.
- VSE/SAM ─ performs label checking based on the function (read or write) and the // TLBL defined by the user; the operator is prompted only if an error occurs. If z/VSE Access Control protection of labeled tapes is occurring, the operator may not reply IGNORE to error conditions.
For information on the content of tape labels, refer to Using z/VSE Macro Support . For information on the positioning of tape labels, refer to Using z/VSE Macro Support .
Reading/writing of spool or accounting data from/to tape. This is done entirely by VSE/POWER tape support.

¹ Native support is executed automatically if none of the VSE/SAM operands TLBL= or LTAPE= are specified in the given VSE/POWER command or JECL statement.