Archive Maintenance Utility (FDRARCH)

FDRARCH is an ABR utility that performs required maintenance on the Archive Control File (ACF) or Extended Archive Control File (EACF),, a database of archived data sets used by ABR Archive Backups (DUMP TYPE=ARC) as described in Working-with-FDRABR-Archiving-and-Superscratch. If you are doing Archive Backups (especially with RECALL=YES), you will need to use FDRARCH to create an ACF and to do periodic maintenance on it.

A Control File with the same format is also used by FDRAPPL Application Backup (DUMP TYPE=APPL) described in Working-with-FDRAPPL. In some circumstances, an Application Backup Control File may also need the attention of FDRARCH. In the following sections, references to the Archive Control File (ACF) will also apply to the Application Backup Control File. However, functions related to Auto-Recall and the DYNARC options will not apply, except where noted, references to the ACF also apply to the EACF. 

The Extended Archive Control File is not supported by Application Backup and therefore cannot be used as an Application Control File. 

FDRARCH statements and functions

The FDRARCH input may contain many statements. Each function is executed as it is encountered, except as noted below. The following FDRARCH statements provide general maintenance functions, including creation of new Archive Control Files:

Formats a new Archive Control File.

Creates a sequential backup copy of an Archive Control File.

Restores the backup copy of an Archive Control File created by DUMP. Can be used to move a control file to a new volume or device type, or to expand the file.

Merge multiple Archive Control Files into one.

This statement should be executed periodically to maintain your Archive Control File:

Reorganizes an Archive Control File, deleting obsolete records and compressing the active records to create space for new records at the end of the file. Obsolete records can includes those marked for deletion (by the DELETE statement), those that are expired (past their expiration dates), those that are flagged as having been restored by ABR, and those marked for Auto-Recall that are no longer cataloged. During the reorganization, Archive Backup files that are no longer referenced by any active record can be deleted and uncataloged.

Unlike the ACF, the EACF does not require compression. Descriptor records within the EACF that are deleted are reused during normal processing. Except where noted, the following options are supported for EACF clusters. 

These statements perform operations against selected records in the Archive Control File:

Mark selected archive records for deletion by a subsequent REORG.

Remove deletion indicators set by DELETE on selected records.

Mark selected records as being expired.

Change fields within archive records in the Archive Control File (for example, expiration dates and backup pointers).

Creates or updates Auto-Recall indicators for archived data sets in system catalogs, so that they can be successfully recalled.

Quickly execute the equivalent of RECATALOG SERVICE=PERFORM against the entire Archive Control File.

Each of the last six statements (DELETE, RESET, EXPIRE, MODIFY, RECATALOG, and SORECATALOG) requires that the entire Archive Control File be scanned for records to be updated. To avoid excessive passes through the file, the changes requested by these statements are saved until another type of statement (such as REORG) or the end of the control statements is encountered; then one pass of the file is performed, comparing each record to every request to see if an action is required. You may also explicitly request the update by entering:

Execute all of the immediately preceding DELETE, RESET, EXPIRE, MODIFY, and RECATALOG statements.

Undocumented functions

FDRARCH contains options and functions that are designed for special situations or special customer requests. To avoid confusion and lengthy descriptions, some of these are not documented in this manual. For a complete list of the supported functions, execute FDRARCH with the statement: HELP ALL.

Operand defaults

The defaults for many operands on FDRARCH statements may be permanently changed from the defaults shown in the descriptions that follow, by making changes in the FDR Global Options. See  Installing for details; most FDRARCH options are set on ISPF panel A.I.4.6 as shown here (with its default values):

Set ABR Archive Utility Defaults – Panel A.I.4.6

FDR514ERR          

Removes error indications when FDR514 is issued.

If YES is specified, then when FDR514** is issued the error indication of two asterisks following the message number is removed and the return code is set to zero. 

If NO is specified, then the error appears with the asterisks following the message number, and the return code is set to 12.

Default: NO