The BLDL macro reads one or more directory entries into virtual storage. Place member names in a BLDL list before issuing the BLDL macro. For each member name in the list, the system supplies the relative track address (TTR) and any additional information contained in the directory entry. If there is more than one member name in the list, the member names must be in collating sequence, regardless of whether the members are from the same or different PDSs or PDSEs in the concatenation.

BLDL also searches a concatenated series of directories when (1) a DCB is supplied that is opened for a concatenated PDS or (2) a DCB is not supplied, in which case the search order begins with the TASKLIB, then proceeds to the JOBLIB or STEPLIB (themselves perhaps concatenated) followed by LINKLIB.

You can alter the sequence of directories searched if you supply a DCB and specify START= or STOP= parameters. These parameters allow you to specify the first and last concatenation numbers of the data sets to be searched.

You can improve retrieval time by directing a subsequent FIND macro to the BLDL list rather than to the directory to locate the member to be processed.

By specifying the BYPASSLLA option, you can direct BLDL to search PDS and PDSE directories on DASD only. If BYPASSLLA is coded, the BLDL code will not call LLA to search for member names.

The BLDL list must begin with a 4-byte list descriptor that specifies the number of entries in the list and the length of each entry (12 to 76 bytes). (See Figure 1.) If you specify the BYPASSLLA option, an 8-byte BLDL prefix must precede the 4-byte list descriptor.

Figure 1. BLDL List Format

The first 8 bytes of each entry contain the member name or alias. The next 6 bytes contain the TTR, K, Z, and C fields. If there is no user data entry, only the TTR and C fields are required. If additional information is to be supplied from the directory, as many as 62 bytes can be reserved.