JCL - PS and PDS

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PS and PDS

What is the difference between PS and PDS ? If a PS file is almost equal to member of a PDS. Then what is the neccerasy to use a PS file.?

Total Answers and Comments: 3

Last Update: April 15, 2009 Asked by: Suneel Reddy

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Submitted by: eli43

PS stands for physical sequential. Data in these files can be read sequentially by a program. PDS stands for partitioned data set. Each member within the PDS can be read as a sequential file if you set up your JCL to reference the specific member.

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serken

October 31, 2007 07:22:21

saranya

RE: PS and PDS

A group of PS forms one PDS. That is PS will act as one single file and PDS will act as folder which contains many files.

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February 19, 2008 11:13:20

eli43

Member Since: January 2008 Contribution: 2

RE: PS and PDS

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April 15, 2009 18:45:07

dhs01

Member Since: April 2009 Contribution: 24

RE: PS and PDS

I would think if your background is in the PC world you could view a PDS as a folder and a PS as a file. At times it is useful to group things into a folder rather than having a bunch of separate files.
The advantage of the grouping is that there are utilities that are designed specifically to handle these PDS. You still have data set size limits and each member of the PDS must have the same file characteristics. So you could not combine a member with a lrecl of 1000 and another with an lrecl of 80 (given fixed records).
The main disadvantage that I would consider is that something might tie up that resource and it could be unavailable to another job. Also the recovery in the event of a problem is double edged. You only have to back up 1 data set but if you somehow lose that 1 data set you lose everything...

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