ISPF- Commands Pack ON/OFF – Part 2

ISPF commands/macros are popular while editing files/programs/jcls in PDS members, Endevor and Changeman.

In my previous lot I have given some commands.

PACK- This is one of the most important profile command. I will give more details on it.

Pack OFF  ==> It decompress the data. So this will not a problem. The data will be saved as we entered.

Pack ON==> Data will be compressed. Because of this some special characters will be included in the Programs/Jcls. Especially when working with JCLs, the pack ON mode causes, job abend.

When we are working with, Chgman and Endevor, after editing of  program/JCLs, we need to make sure that “Pack OFF” 

Attention to developers is:

  1. with the pack on, we can save memory on DASD
  2. when the program/JCL, earlier is in PACK OFF mode, after editing also it saves as PACK OFF. In the same way for PACK ON.
  3. the advantage is we can save SPACE
  4. disadvantage is, when Files/JCLS with PACK ON mode, can not execute directly, so we will get abend.

Author: Srini

Experienced software developer. Skills in Development, Coding, Testing and Debugging. Good Data analytic skills (Data Warehousing and BI). Also skills in Mainframe.