Enhanced member processing

You can enhance the following utilities with member processing:
  • Copy Utility (option 3.3) or Data Set Copy function (DSC)
  • Print Utility (option 3.2) or Data Set Print function (DSP)

The key concept is that the user procedure is presented with each record in the member. The user procedure tests each record for some conditions and then tells File Manager whether or not the entire member should be copied or printed.

Member processing always requires a user procedure. The commands, RETURN PROCESS MEMBER and RETURN DROP MEMBER, enable the user procedure to indicate respectively whether or not the current utility operation (print or copy) should be performed on the member. If the user procedure makes no decision, File Manager continues to pass records to the user procedure by using the RETURN command.

For member processing, you must specify the MEMPROC option, as well as a default behavior (PROCESS or DROP). If the entire member is read and no decision is made by the user procedure (that is, there is no RETURN PROCESS MEMBER or RETURN DROP MEMBER command returned), then the default behavior (PROCESS or DROP) is used.

Changes made by the user procedure to the output record are ignored during member processing.