How to manage mainframe scripts in RTC
I'm looking for suggestions or best practices to manage mainframe scripts, JCLs for example. I have some JCL which creates the VSAM files and loads data for my CICS application. I'd like to manage these JCLs in a version controls system so that I have version of my data schema and a small sized test data.
The question is that I'm not sure if the dependency build, package, deploy process applies as well. For application code, I uses dependency build to pull the code to PDS, compile it to load modules which then can be packaged and deployed to the test LPAR. For scripts, there's no need to compile, how do I load the scripts from RTC to mainframe? It looks like package and deploy should just work fine after that.
Any suggestions or known practices?
One answer
You can manage in the SCM files that are not meant to be built in the SCM. If you don't want them built, then you will not attach them to a language definition. You may also isolate these files in a dedicated component and probably in a dedicated stream.
If one of this file is involved in the build (for example contributes the script used by a translator), then you need this file to be loaded during the build. You can do that by marking it as "always load" (C.f. http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/clmhelp/v4r0m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.team.build.doc%2Ftopics%2Ft_ee_always_load.html).
There are various options to get these files loaded on the mainframe, depending on your need, but it does not have to be related to a dependency build. It depends on the trigger that you require to load them. It could be through the scm command line, a non dependency build that would load a complete workspace (that would contain your files), or even the ISPF client.
If one of this file is involved in the build (for example contributes the script used by a translator), then you need this file to be loaded during the build. You can do that by marking it as "always load" (C.f. http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/clmhelp/v4r0m1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.team.build.doc%2Ftopics%2Ft_ee_always_load.html).
There are various options to get these files loaded on the mainframe, depending on your need, but it does not have to be related to a dependency build. It depends on the trigger that you require to load them. It could be through the scm command line, a non dependency build that would load a complete workspace (that would contain your files), or even the ISPF client.
Comments
Nicolas, thank you for the answer, that's what I'm looking for.
I would also want to use the package and deploy function to 'install' and run my script files because that gives me the ability to choose a version that I have packaged to deploy. I noticed that deployment doesn't support post-build command as good as the normal builds do. What I need is the ability to run commands, wait for the completion before the deploy completes. Similar to how we use .submitJCL in command line build.