Archive Maintenance Utility (FDRARCH)

FDRARCH is an ABR utility that performs required maintenance on the Archive Control File (ACF), a database of archived data sets used by ABR Archive Backups (DUMP TYPE=ARC) as described in 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 FDRAPPL-Application-Backup. 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.

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.

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

Mark selected archive records for deletion by a subsequent REORG.

RESET

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 (or NEWS to get a summary of recent changes) or browse the FDRARCH member in the FDR Installation Control Library (ICL).

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  FDR-Installation 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