Mainframe Programming Languages Technology Update

PL/1 Programming

PL/1 can utilize the performance hardware improvements in the newer platforms available for z10 architecture. The full function PL/1 includes both the PL/I compiler and the debug capability found in Debug Tool for z/OS.

There have been enhancements which integrate PL/1 and web-based business processes into web services, XML, Java and PL/1 applications. There is a built-in XML parser and integrated CICS and SQL preprocessors. There are new built-in functions which include support for UTF-8 or UTF-16.

SYS-ED workshops explain and demonstrate:

• Java interoperability with PL/1. The compiler supports the PL/1 language with a thread-safe PL/1 library and multithreading statements: ATTACH, WAIT, and DETACH.
   
• The XML high-speed parser which provides PL/1 programs the ability to parse XML documents in EBCDIC, ASCII, or UTF-16 Unicode directly within their PL/I applications.
   
• Support for the generation of XML with Enterprise PL/1, V3R3 and later.
   
• How to dump the contents of a structure as XML into a buffer using the built-in function.
   
• How to utilize the additional DB2 date-time formats for processing SQL requests.

Assembler Programming

In the z/OS, z/VM, and z/VSE V1.6 IBM mainframe environments, new capabilities have been added to the high-level Assembler Language for simplifying maintenance, and enhancement programming.

SYS-ED workshops explain and demonstrate:

• HLASM Services Interface which delivers operating system environment services for writing platform-independent exits and external functions.
   
  • An internal HLASM Services Interface allows user exits to allocate and free storage, write operator messages, and access date and time information.
  • Exits can be coded without operating system-dependent instructions.
     
• Suffix tags for instruction mnemonics which allow identically-named macro instructions and machine instructions to be used in the same source program.
   
• The two new address constants which provide resolution into long-displacement format; thereby increasing instruction addressability and reducing the need for additional instructions.