Re: IBM z/OS compatibility issues - shell environment

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Daniel,

> SHELL SCRIPTING SNAFUS
> 
> In the z/OS environment, if you want to use a proper Bash shell, you
> typically get the build provided by Rocket Software:
> 
>     https://www.rocketsoftware.com/product-categories/mainframe/bash-zos
> 
> The problem, however, is that shell scripting with this version of Bash
> can be a little tricky, because it doesn't fully embrace EBCDIC. ...
> These are the
> settings I used which allow things to work:
> 
>     _ENCODE_FILE_NEW=IBM-1047
>     _ENCODE_FILE_EXISTING=IBM-1047
>     _CEE_RUNOPTS="FILETAG(AUTOCVT,AUTOTAG) POSIX(ON)"
>     _BPXK_AUTOCVT=ON
>     _TAG_REDIR_ERR=txt
>     _TAG_REDIR_IN=txt
>     _TAG_REDIR_OUT=txt

Can we have this documented in the column "Other variables" of
https://gitlab.com/ghwiki/gnow-how/wikis/Platforms/Configuration ?

> While I would not recommend giving to init.sh knowledge of the above
> variables, I think it would be helpful to do some basic sanity checking
> (like the echo|grep invocation above) to avoid more pathological
> breakage later in the script. The failure message could include a hint
> to the user about what's wrong with the shell, and what needs to be done
> to fix it.

The 'echo ABC | grep ABC > /dev/null' command is indeed something that we
could check in a number of shell scripts. In which shell scripts do you wish
it to be added?

Bruno