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All Other Mainframe Topics :: RE: It's a DATA SET...or is it?

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Author: Robert Sample
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:01 am (GMT 5.5)

RahulG31, from the IBM Glossary of z/OS terms and abbreviations at http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zglossary.doc/zglossary.html :
Quote:
data set. In z/OS, a named collection of related data records that is stored and retrieved by an assigned name. Equivalent to a file in other operating systems.
and
Quote:
file. A collection of related data that is stored and retrieved by an assigned name. A file can include information that starts a program (program-file object), contains text or graphics (data-file object), or processes a series of commands (batch file). See data set

I can see why the term "file" gets used. I even use it myself at times in reference to z/OS. However, I DO understand the record structure of data sets as opposed to the linear byte arrangement of a file -- but many of the people posting here do not and they need to learn to use correct terminology. And for a z/OS system, files are on tape or in Unix System Services -- too, a case could be made that tapes have data sets as well -- but not on disk.
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