RE: Saving spool files!

Brendan wrote:

>The APIs do track the original user id - either as the job user of the new
>spooled file  (QPRTJOB/olduser/newnumber) or as the 'User who created file'
>attribute.
>
>To track the spooled file with all it's job attributes you'll need to keep
>them within a separate cross-reference file - which allows searching via
the
>old job name, and finds the new spooled file.

This is all well and good, but then you need to create an application to
handle the saving and restoring of spool files. Several people have pointed
me to several such applications during this discussion. In fact... I'm
currently using one, BRMS and it will archive copies of spool files and I
can search the archive and find files by original jobname and original
create time. 

But when I restore the spool file it is "different" than the original,
because I haven't saved a spool file, I've saved a copy of a spool file.
This is the point I've been trying to make and I guess I haven't been very
articulate in my attempt...

I'm frustrated because I have to do all this work to save and restore a
spool file. Why can't IBM allow me to save a spool file, restore a spool
file and retain the original creation date and original job name of the
file. For example, when you restore a DB file it still has information about
when it was created....

        Creation information:                                               
        Creation date/time . . . . . . . . : 08/30/91  10:08:10

        Created by user  . . . . . . . . . : QSECOFR

        System created on  . . . . . . . . : DPSNET                     
        Object domain  . . . . . . . . . . : *SYSTEM 

I would just like to see spool files defined like other objects on the
system.                          

Kenneth

--
********************************
       Kenneth  E.  Graap
    IBM Certified Specialist
          AS/400   Professional 
          System  Administrator
 NW Natural - Information Services
           System Services
        503 226 4211 X5537
          FAX  503 721 2521
      keg@nwnatural.com
********************************


-----Original Message-----
From: blackandblue [mailto:blackandblue@tianet.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 1999 2:11 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: Saving spool files!


>The spool API's do not retain the original job name and original create
time
>attributes. They create copies of the spool data, not a direct save of a
>spool files like you can save an object. When you use the API's to restore
a
>copied spool file the job name becomes the restore job's name and the
create
>time becomes the current time.


Ken,

The APIs do track the original user id - either as the job user of the new
spooled file  (QPRTJOB/olduser/newnumber) or as the 'User who created file'
attribute.

To track the spooled file with all it's job attributes you'll need to keep
them within a separate cross-reference file - which allows searching via the
old job name, and finds the new spooled file.

Our company does have something which does this, Easy Spool Archiver. It is
more expensive than other options mentioned previously, but if you use it
for a CISC-RISC migration (or in your case a system upgrade), the WRKOUTQESA
& 'Restore' facility can be used indefinitely.

You can download it at http://www.black-and-blue.com

An alternative might be to change the OUTQ/USRDTA/FORMTYPE fields to keep
the information you use for searching (e.g. keep the jobname in USRDTA, the
create date in USRDTA and separate the spooled files in outqs named after
the USER).

As to your original point, why OS/400 has never had a SAVOUTQ or at least a
backup of QSPL is amazing. I can only surmise that it is because the spooled
file is regarded as belonging to a job, which like job locks, overrides etc.
cannot actually be saved. The information needed to make sense of the QSPL
members is perhaps contained in the job, and this dies with the job (i.e.
when the file is deleted)?

IBM probably had the choice of introducing a SAVJOB/RSTJOB command, or
writing APIs to separate the spooled file from the job and allowing that to
be SAV/RST'd.


Brendan Bispham
Black and Blue Software Engineering



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