Specifying expiration attributes

The expiration attributes, EXPIRE AFTER DAYS NON-USAGE and EXPIRE AFTER DATE/DAYS, govern how long a data set associated with the management class is kept if no expiration date is listed in the data set VTOC entry or if the VTOC entry contains an INVALID EXPIRATION DATE. The expiration date is in the data set VTOC entry if the RETENTION LIMIT attribute does not specify a value of zero to disallow the use of explicit expiration dates and the expiration date is explicitly specified by the user or data class.

DFSMShsm considers explicit expiration dates to be INVALID when:

the day portion of the date is not between 1 and 366, nor is 999.
Note: Expiration dates of 99.365, 99.366, and 99.999 continue to be honored as "never expire" when explicitly specified.
the current definition of the assigned SMS Management Class specifies a RETENTION LIMIT value of zero to disallow the use of explicit expiration dates prior to a Management Class change.

EXPIRE AFTER DAYS NON-USAGE specifies how many days must elapse from the last access of the data set until the data set becomes eligible for expiration. EXPIRE AFTER DATE/DAYS specifies an absolute date or period after the data set has been created for a data set to become eligible for expiration. The default for both attributes is NOLIMIT.

Both attributes can be used together. When both attributes have a value other than NOLIMIT, both attributes must be satisfied before the data set is expired. When both attributes are NOLIMIT, the data set does not expire. When one of the attributes is NOLIMIT, that attribute is not used to expire the data set; the expiration of the data set is based on the attribute that is not NOLIMIT.

It is possible to have a management class request both automatic backup processing—by using the AUTO BACKUP setting of Y— and expiration processing—by using the EXPIRE AFTER.... as numeric values. In this case, DFSMShsm determines if a backup copy has been made before expiring the data set. The data set will be deleted when any of the following conditions are true:

The data set change flag is off in the VTOC entry and the last backup date in the catalog is nonzero.
Note: DFSMShsm does not verify the existence of the backup version.
The data set change flag is off in the VTOC entry and the last backup date in the catalog is zero and the management class does not request automatic backup for this data set.
The data set change flag is on in the VTOC entry and the management class does not request automatic backup for this data set.

Rule: ADMIN OR USER COMMAND BACKUP must not be NONE and AUTO BACKUP must be Y to request automatic backup.