HZAZIP data set support

The data control block (DCB) attributes of the original data set that the HZAZIP utility compresses are not encoded into the archive. The success of a compress and decompress cycle requires the user to supply suitable DCB attributes for the ultimate destination of the data.

The following points are provided to help you to assess whether the HZAZIP utility can successfully process a data set:

  • When processing a whole partitioned data set, the file name specified after ZIP= or ADD= is ignored because the member names are used to label the archived files.
  • When ZIP processing detects that a PDS member is a zip archive, the member is stored as a byte stream as is without attempting further compression or record boundary preservation.
  • ZIPBIN processing of PDS members containing zip archives usually causes the compressed size to be larger than the uncompressed size, due to the inability to further compact the data and the insertion of RDWs to preserve record boundaries. So, if the only non-text data in a PDS is in members which are themselves zip archives, specify ZIP rather than ZIPBIN to minimize the resultant file size.
  • When using ADD or ADDBIN, avoid duplicate file names in the resultant archive.
  • You can use the ADD and ADDBIN parameters to create an archive with a mixture of text and binary file members.
  • The binary or text nature of an unzip process is set by the program parameter and not from the attribute values in the file header.
  • When the HZAZIP utility creates a zip archive, the data set name of the input file is stored as the zip archive comment.
  • PDS member user data such as system status information (SSI), ISPF statistics, and load module attributes are stored in the comment field of the central file header of the archive member and can be restored during unzip operations.
  • Alias members are stored as files with zero bytes. The alias member data is preserved only if the real member associated with the alias member is also processed.
  • Use ZIPBIN and UNZIPBIN when processing load module libraries.
  • Segment overlay programs are not restored properly, unless the TTRs happen to match, because the TTRs in the segment tables are not updated by the HZAZIP utility.
  • The HZAZIP utility cannot restore program PDSE data sets because only the program binder can write to program PDSEs. There is no restriction on data PDSEs.