Question { Emsang, 19219 }

What is the COBOL picture clause for a DB2 column defined
as DECIMAL(11,2)?

Answer

PIC S9(9)V99 COMP-3.

In DECIMAl(11,2), 11 indicates the size of data type and 2
indicates the precision.

Question { Infosys, 33482 }

why should we bind the DB2 program . What if we did not
BIND a BD2 program ??

Answer

Bind is type of compiler for the SQL statement.
It reads the SQL Statements from the DBRM and produces a mechanism to access data as directed by the SQL statements being bound.
Also checks Syntax, check for correctness of table & column definitions against the catalog information & performs authorization validation.

Question { IBM, 13586 }

What is difference between Return Code, user completion
code, Abend code and reason Code?

Answer

A RETURN_CODE shows the status of each step within a job and
the maximum RETURN_CODE is 256.

Return code - is issued by the program and can be set to any
value up to an arbitary limit (4096 I think). To know the
meaning of the return code you need to read the
documentation of the program / product / utility that is
being executed. i.e. RC16 from SORT does not mean the same
thing as RC16 from IDCAMS.

Abend / User completion code - are codes that reflect the
nature of the abend. System abends are documented by IBM,
user completion codes are the same as above for return codes.

Reason code - May or may no be used in conjunction with
abends codes.

Question { CGI, 12317 }

what is the use of ENTRY in IMS?

Answer

When ever your batch program is involked under the control
of the DL/I batch intialization module, DL/I first load the
appropriate control blocks and modules, then loads your
application program and passes control to it. Declare
DLITCBL as an entry point to your program by coding
following ENTRY statement,

ENTRY 'DLITCBL' USING PCB-name1
PCB-name2...

Similarly, when your program ends, it must pass control back
to DL/I so that DL/I can deallocate its resources and close
your data base data sets.. To do that, you code a GOBACK
statement, not a STOP RUN statment.

Question { HSBC, 8993 }

can any body explain about plan and pakage in detail....

Answer

A package is single bound DBRM with optimized access paths.
It contains location identifier, collection Identifier and
package identifier.

A package can have multiple versions, each with it's own
version identifier

Advantages of Packages,
Reduce the Bind Time.
Versioning.
Can provide BIND options at programmer level.

As Ashish mentioned above, Plan contains packages list which
is nothing but Pointers. whenever you are doing changes in
SQL staetments related to particular DBRM . Then only that
particular Packages needs to be rebind not the Plan. This is
similar to recompiling a sub program not the main program.

Question { CTS, 44760 }

How to find out the number of records in a file using JCL

Answer

Using Syncsort,

//SORT1 EXEC PGM=SORT
//SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
//SORTIN DD DSN=Input.File,DISP=SHR
//SORTOUT DD DSN=Output.File,...
//SYSIN DD *
SORT FIELDS=COPY
OUTFIL FILES=OUT,TRAILER1=
(1:COUNT),REMOVECC,NODETAIL
/*

This job creates a report with a single trailer record
containing the record count.

The COUNT subparameter of TRAILER1 provides the number of
records for the entire report (all the records) starting at
position 1.

REMOVECC omits the ANSI carriage control character from all
of the report records.

NODETAIL generates a report with no data records, only
header and trailer records, as specified.