Grouping with ALLDSN
When data sets have been selected using ALLDSN, the output data sets are normally grouped together the same way they are grouped on the input volumes. All the files from one volume (or multivolume set) will go together to an output volume or multivolume set, regardless of their expiration dates. This minimizes the number of mounts for each input tape.
You can change this so that the output data sets are grouped by the expiration dates of the input files. This allows files which will expire in the same range of days to be on a single tape (or multivolume set). Use this option if you want to scratch and reuse your output tapes as soon as possible.
Q: Do you want to group by expiration date instead of the usual grouping by input volume?
No – click here to skip ahead.
Yes – Add GROUPBY=EXPDATE to your COPY or SIM statement.
You can specify what the allowed spread of expiration dates will be for a single group. The normal value is 7; data sets which expire within 7 days of each other will form a single group. (So if you have 14 daily data sets, the first 7 will be in the first group, and the next 7 will be in the next group.)
Q: Do you want a group spread of a number of days different from 7?
Yes1– Add EXPDTGROUP=n to your COPY or SIM statement, where the number of days n may be from 0 to 998.
Q: Is this a SIM job?
Yes – Other output functions are not needed by a SIM, so click here to skip ahead.