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LISTCAT LEVEL with MLA set to 2 generates duplicate names

Question & Answer


Question

From OY29287 User has system sharing DASD with 10 other processors. Master catalogs of these 10 processors are connected as user catalogs to system A. The high-level qualifier of all catalogs is SYS1.

Answer

Description:

From OY29287
User has system sharing DASD with 10 other processors. Master catalogs of these 10 processors are connected as user catalogs to system A.
The high-level qualifier of all catalogs is SYS1. 
SYS1.PROCLIB is cataloged in each master catalog.

The command LISTCAT LEVEL(SYS1), with ALIAS level set to 1 lists the SYS1.PROCLIB one time.
Changing to Multi Level Alias = 2, and running the same LISTCAT job lists the SYS1.PROCLIB 11 times.


Resolution:

LISTCAT LEVEL can yield different results depending on the current ALIAS level of the system.
As the ALIAS level increases, the chance of qualifying data sets also increases.

Therefore, the same LISTCAT LEVEL lists more data sets when the ALIAS level is 2 as opposed to an ALIAS level of 1. For example, the system has two user catalogs with the following data sets the master catalog looks like this:

MASTERCATALOG -- MASTRCAT
NONVSAM --- TEST.MYDATA
CATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT1 ===> ALIAS -- DEPT1
NONVSAM --- TEST.ICFUCAT1.NONVSAM
NONVSAM --- DEPT1.INFO
CLUSTER --- TEST.ICFUCAT1.CLUSTER
DATA --- TEST.ICFUCAT1.DATA
INDEX --- TEST.ICFUCAT1.INDEX
CATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT2 ===> ALIAS -- DEPT2
NONVSAM --- TEST.ICFUCAT2.NONVSAM
NONVSAM --- DEPT2.REPORT
CLUSTER --- TEST.ICFUCAT2.CLUSTER
DATA --- TEST.ICFUCAT2.DATA
INDEX --- TEST.ICFUCAT2.INDEX

CASE 1: ALIASLEVEL=1
LISTCAT LEVEL(TEST) WILL YIELD THE FOLLOWING RESULT:

USERCATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT
USERCATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT
NONVSAM ------- TEST.MYDATA
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT

When the ALIAS level is 1, LISTCAT sees in the catalog three entries that have a high-level qualifier of "TEST" (the 2 user catalogs and the non-VSAM data set). LISTCAT did not go into either of the user catalogs for further searching because when ALIAS level is 1, TEST.ICFUCAT1 and TEST.ICFUCAT2 were not selected to be searched because both their names have two levels of qualification, which causes them to not be treated as aliases.

CASE 2: ALIASLEVEL=2
LISTCAT LEVEL(TEST) WILL YIELD THE FOLLOWING RESULT:


INDEX --------- TEST.ICFUCAT1.CATINDEX
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
CLUSTER ------- TEST.ICFUCAT1.CLUSTER
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
DATA ---------- TEST.ICFUCAT1.DATA
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
INDEX --------- TEST.ICFUCAT1.INDEX
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
NONVSAM ------- TEST.ICFUCAT1.NONVSAM
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
INDEX --------- TEST.ICFUCAT2.CATINDEX
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
CLUSTER ------- TEST.ICFUCAT2.CLUSTER
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
DATA ---------- TEST.ICFUCAT2.DATA
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
INDEX --------- TEST.ICFUCAT2.INDEX
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
NONVSAM ------- TEST.ICFUCAT2.NONVSAM
IN-CAT --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
USERCATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT1
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT
USERCATALOG --- TEST.ICFUCAT2
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT
NONVSAM ------- TEST.MYDATA
IN-CAT --- MASTRCAT

When ALIAS level is 2, LISTCAT still sees the three entries that have a high-level qualifier of "TEST" (the UCAT-connectors) and both catalogs TEST.ICFUCAT1 and TEST.ICFUCAT2 were also selected since the ALIAS level is 2. Therefore, LISTCAT searches the individual catalogs and selects all data sets within those user catalogs that have a high level qualifier of TEST.

ALIAS level can be set via the catalog MODIFY command i.e. F CATALOG,ALIASLEVEL(n).

If the ALIAS level is set higher than 1, to limit your search to a specific catalog, add the catalog parameter to the LISTCAT command to search a specific catalog.

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Historical Number

6571313

Document Information

Modified date:
03 September 2021

UID

isg3S1000058