Required Parameters

(entryname[ entryname...])

names the entries to be deleted. If you want to delete more than one entry, you must enclose the list of entrynames in parentheses. The maximum number of entrynames you can specify is 100. You can code a generic name to delete multiple entries with one entryname. For example, GENERIC.*.BAKER is a generic name where * is any 1-to-8 character simple name. If you specify a generic name on the LEVEL keyword, only one qualifier can replace an asterisk (*). This applies when you either explicitly specify or default to NOMASK.

When you specify the MASK keyword, you can specify only one entryname, which is then considered a filter key. A filter key is an expanded generic name that allows for more versatile generic characters. The system only honors a filter key when the MASK keyword is specified in the DELETE command. (NOMASK is the default.)

If you specify entry names that include the following generics, the system considers them filter keys and so they can only be used when you specify MASK:

Double asterisks (**), which represent multiple qualifiers within a data set name
Percent signs (%), which represents one to eight percent characters within a qualifier
An asterisk within a qualifier

For additional information on using MASK or NOMASK keyword see Optional Parameters.

If you are deleting a member of a non-VSAM partitioned data set, you must specify entryname in the format: pdsname(membername). The membername can contain wild card charaters %, and * to DELETE more than one members at a time.

The partitioned data set name directory is read to obtain a list of members, and each member in the list is filtered using the membername with the wildcard.

If a member in the list matches the filter criteria, the member is deleted. If you specify the entryname in the format of a partition data set, pdsname(*) or pdsname(**) , the command deletes all the members in the partition data set. If the partitioned data set is not a PDSE, the directory is reinitailized when using pdsname(*) , but not for pdsname(**).

If you are deleting a non-VSAM data set that was defined by coding DEVICETYPES(0000) and VOLUMES(******), then DELETE only uncatalogs the data set. It does not scratch the data set from the SYSRES volume.

In a TSO environment, when specifying the MASK parameter, the entryname is considered to be a string for the mask. Therefore, the UserID is not prefixed to the entryname as is normally done for other TSO DELETEs.