Specifying criteria for the VSAM sphere list

How to filter the VSAM spheres that are displayed on the CICS® VR VSAM sphere list by specifying a VSAM sphere and Data set.

Select option 1 from the main menu to display the "VSAM sphere list include" secondary window, as shown below.

Use this secondary window to filter the VSAM spheres that are displayed on the CICS VR VSAM sphere list:

Restriction: If you enter text in both the VSAM sphere field and the Data Set Name field, CICS VR ignores the VSAM sphere field and opens the data set that you specified in the Data Set Name field.

Figure 1. VSAM sphere list include secondary window
                      CICSVR VSAM sphere list include                        
 Command ===> ____________________________________________________________   
                                                                             
 Specify VSAM sphere list search criteria, then press Enter.                 
                                                                             
 VSAM sphere . . . . . . . *___________________________________________      
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                    OR                                       
                                                                             
 Specify the name of a data set that contains a list of VSAM spheres,        
 then press Enter.                                                           
                                                                             
 Data Set Name . . . ______________________________________________________  
                                                                             
  F1=Help    F12=Cancel                                                      
Note: Start of changeChanged values for both the VSAM sphere field and the Data Set Name field are saved in the application profile pool and are extracted from the application profile pool the next time you open the "CICS VR VSAM sphere list include" window. Upon completion of the CICS VR dialog session, ISPF saves the contents of the application profile pool in the user’s profile library which guarantees saving the last entered data set filter across both CICS VR and ISPF sessions for the same TSO user ID.End of change

VSAM sphere

Use the VSAM sphere field to enter data set name search criteria to filter the VSAM spheres that are included in the CICS VR VSAM sphere list. The default value for this field is an asterisk '*'. Use the default value to display all registered VSAM spheres on the CICS VR VSAM sphere list.

For detailed help information, move the cursor to this field and press F1.

Data Set Name

Use the Data Set Name field to enter the name of a data set that contains records with the names of VSAM spheres.

The data set can be either sequential or a member of a Partitioned Data Set (PDS), so you can create a group of VSAM spheres using any method you choose, such as ISPF panels or JCL. You can save these data sets for later use.

For example, you might want to create a data set list that contains the names of the VSAM spheres that are updated by a certain application. If that application encounters an error, you can quickly create a recovery job for every VSAM sphere that has been updated by the abending application.

Each VSAM sphere listed in the data set, and that is registered to CICS VR, is on the VSAM sphere list and is selected. If a VSAM sphere is listed in the data set, but is not registered to CICS VR, see Viewing unregistered VSAM spheres for details on how to register the VSAM sphere.

CICS VR displays an appropriate error message if any of the following conditions are true for the specified data set:
  • The data set does not exist.
  • The data set is not cataloged.
  • The data set is empty.
  • The data set does not have a fixed or variable record format.
  • The data set has spanned records.
  • The data set does not reside on DASD.

The data set might be created as described in Creating the data set list.