VOL=REF acting differently than on the mainframe.

1. Submit a job with a the following DD statements

//TAPE1    DD  DUMMY,                                                                                           

 118 //             DISP= (NEW,KEEP,KEEP),                                                                 

 119 //             UNIT=(TAPE,,DEFER),                                                                        

 120 //             DATACLAS=CART,                                                                             

 121 //             LABEL=(1,NL),                                                                                    

 122 //             VOL=(PRIVATE,RETAIN),                                                                    

 123 //             DCB=(RECFM=FB,LRECL=080,BLKSIZE=32720)                                 

 124 //*                                                                                                                       

 125 //TAPE2    DD  DSN=TAPE2,                                                                              

 126 //             DISP=(NEW,KEEP,KEEP),                                                                   

 127 //             UNIT=AFF=TAPE1,                                                                              

 128 //             LABEL=(2,NL),                                                                                     

 129 //             VOL=REF=*.TAPE1,                                                                            

 130 //             DCB=(RECFM=FB,LRECL=080,BLKSIZE=32720)                                  

 131 //*                                                                                                                       

If you did this on the mainframe they would all become DUMMY, on microfocus this does not happen and if the job is run a second time, or in this case if the next step also has the TAPE1-TAPE5 dd statements, you ABEND with duplicate datasets

Create each dataset separately to accomplish the goal of dummy out 2 or more datasets.

1)      You cannot process tapes on a PC nor can you stack files onto each other.

2)      VOL=REF= is used for referring back to a tape and placing the new file stacked onto the first file.

3)      If environment variable MF_UCC11 is set than no duplicates will occur (S422).

This happened here because it is turned off so MF thought the first step

was a file because we don’t recognize tapes and it created the first step as a file.

The second step tried to create it again hence getting the S422 Duplicate message.