IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi,

I am facing a very unusual issue explained below:

We have a production job setup which transfers a mainframe dataset to .TXT file on a specified server destination. The mainframe dataset contains 50 Record length of data which has 2 bytes of SPACE at the end of each records. So 48 bytes contain some alphanumeric value and last 2 bytes contains spaces.

While running a job from production, only 48 record length is being transferred and SPACES are not transferred even though it is a valid data and comes under pre-defined layout. When we transfer the same dataset to same server with exactly same parameter/configuration from TEST environment, all 50 bytes of record length gets transferred. I could see only change in production and TEST environment is the GATEWAYS. We use different gateways for production and TEST.

This has increased my manual efforts and causing issues at receiving end. Please advise. Thanks in advance.

There is a mainframe FTP setting that could affect your results, especially if the test and production TCP stacks are in different LPARs. In the FTP parameters section of the TCP/IP configuration PDS, look for the TRAILINGBLANKS setting. If this value is FALSE, then trailing blanks are automatically removed during an FTP transfer. If this setting is TRUE, trailing blanks will be retained during an FTP transfer. Your site support group should be able to check the settings for test and production.

Thank You so much! Is there anyway that I can check the settings without taking help of my site support group?

Set up an FTP of one of your files. Submit it and let it complete. Change the name and add before the PUT command. Compare the two files to verify which one has trailing blanks and the other does not. Since the command is a toggle, if the first file has trailing blanks then your site is using TRAILINGBLANKS FALSE and vice versa.

Thank you, again!