vmfplc2.1(2010-08-07)

NAME
vmfplc2 - Hercules VMFPLC2 (VM) formatted tape utility

SYNOPSIS
vmfplc2 dump <control file> <output tape file>
vmfplc2 scan <input tape file>
vmfplc2 load <input tape file>

DESCRIPTION
Hercules command to manipulate (create and read) VMFPLC2 formatted tapes for VM/370 use.

OPTIONS
the vmfplc2 utility requires a function (dump, scan or load) followed by the names of files to process.

Functions

  dump
The dump function allows creating a VMFPLC2 formatted tape.

  scan
The scan function allows listing the contents of a VMFPLC2 formatted tape.

  load
The load function allows importing the contents of a VMFPLC2 formatted tape unto the system.

Control File
The control file allows the DUMP function to determine what files to dump and how they should be interpreted on VM. Each line has the following format :
<fn> <ft> <fm> <recfm> <lrecl> <type> <host file>

  <fn>
Is the 1 to 8 character that represents the file name. The file name can be specified as lower case, but will be translated to upper case to follow CMS conventions. Characters allowed are [A-Z], [0-9], $ (Dollar), # (Pound), @ (At), + (Plus), - (Hyphen), : (Colon) and _ (Underscore).

  <ft>
Is the 1 to 8 character that represents the file type. The file type can be specified as lower case, but will be translated to upper case to follow CMS conventions. Characters allowed are [A-Z], [0-9], $ (Dollar), # (Pound), @ (At), + (Plus), - (Hyphen), : (Colon) and _ (Underscore).

  <fm>
Is the 1 to 2 character that represents the file mode. The 1st character is a letter from A to Z and represents the "original" file mode when scanned on VM/370 (it does not force the file to be loaded on a certain disk). The second character is a digit from 0 to 6. The file mode number indicates specific behavior for the file under CMS.

  <recfm>
Indicates the record format, and should be F (for Fixed) or V (for Variable).

  <lrecl>
Indicate the logical record length. This should only be specified for RECFM F files.

  <type>
Indicates how the file is processed before being written to tape. The value can either be B (Binary), T (Textual) or S (Structured).

  Binary
The file is not translated. For RECFM F files, the file is cut into records of the size of the Logical Record length specified. For RECFM V files, the file is cut into records of 65535 bytes except for the last record which has a length of the remainder of the file.

  Textual
The file is translated from ASCII to EBCDIC and the trailing line termination character is removed. For RECFM F files, the record may be truncated or padded with EBCDIC X'40' characters (White space). For RECFM V files, each record represents the length of the line up to 65535 characters.

  Structured
The file contains structured information which indicates the 16 bit length of each record in Big endian format. For RECFM F files, the record may be truncated or padded. For RECFM V files, the records are cut into records of the length specified in the record structure information fields.

  <tape file>
The tape file is created or read as an HET (Hercules Emulated Tape) format. The DUMP function creates a file, while the SCAN and LOAD functions only read the file.

Examples
The following creates a VMFPLC2 formatted tape named "out.het" which contains a single file named "foo.text" which can then be read as "FOO TEXT" on the guest system :

  Control file
File name "list" :
FOO TEXT A1 F 80 B foo.text

  Command
vmfplc2 dump list out.het

SEE ALSO

http://www.hercules-390.org/ the Hercules emulator homepage.

HISTORY
2010-08-07 originally written by Ivan S. Warren