The VDUMP utility, no longer supported, allowed you to dump a sequential or ISAM data set in EBCDIC followed by the vertical hexadecimal equivalent. ISAM data sets are also no longer supported. All users with ISAM data sets should convert them to VSAM.

This information describes how to use the PRINT command of IDCAMS to print a sequential or VSAM data set in character and/or hexadecimal format. It is intended as a replacement for VDUMP and is not intended to describe how to use VSAM data sets. For detailed information on IDCAMS and using VSAM data sets, see the documentation section below.

IDCAMS is an IBM utility that allows you to create and manipulate VSAM data sets. It has several commands. You can use the PRINT command of IDCAMS to print a VSAM data set.

The general form of the PRINT command is as follows:

PRINT parameter parameter -
      parameter -
      parameter

Parameters may be separated by either commas or blanks. You can continue the PRINT statement by coding a hyphen (-) as the last character of a line. The command and parameters may be typed anywhere betweeen columns 2-72.

Figure 21shows the JCL for a basic job setup to access IDCAMS. Replace "format" with CHARACTER if you want the data set to be printed in character format, DUMP to specify both hexadecimal and character format, or HEX to print just in hexadecimal.

//PRINT JOB ,'your name',CLASS=class,TIME=(mm,ss),LINES=lines
/*ROUTE  PRINT node.location
// EXEC PGM=IDCAMS
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=A
//indd  DD DSN= ... (describes the input data set)
//SYSIN DD *
PRINT -
  INFILE(indd) -
  format
/* 

You may want only to print part of your data set. You can use the SKIP(n) keyword to indicate the number of records to skip before the printing begins. The following example would begin printing with the 100th record.

PRINT -
  INFILE(OLD) -
  CHARACTER -
  SKIP(99)

See the IBM manual DFSMS/MVS Access Method Services for the Integrated Catalog Facility for detailed information about using IDCAMS. It also contains descriptions of other PRINT keywords not discussed here.

An excellent, but brief, overview of VSAM data sets and the IDCAMS utility, is in the latest version of the JCL text by Gary DeWard Brown.

See the CNS General Information: CNS Software and Software References manual (D0009) for information on how to obtain these manuals.