Deletion of previous build outputs before new build

[FALLAI-Denis]

Hi,

In an impactBuild + full package context, we encounter use cases that require deleting the results of a previous build in the event of a new build and the features of the built file has changed.

Use cases:

• COBOL program with Db2 which becomes without Db2: the DBRM of the previous construction must be deleted from full Package.
• COBOL program in dual mode batch + CICS (2 loadmodules) which becomes only batch or only CICS: it is necessary to remove the loadmodule from full Package for the mode which is no longer used.

Could this handling of deleting results produced by previous builds be handled by the "official" zAppbuild, or do we need to handle these cases in our own zAppbuild implementation?

[dennis-behm]

Hi Denis,

It is an interesting thought of having an additional flag to clean the datasets in advance. Useful in a user build context as well.

We already have a sample of deleting the datasets in the ibm community repository, which you can include into your build pipeline. Are you aware of it? https://github.com/IBM/dbb/tree/main/Utilities/DeletePDS

[FALLAI-Denis]

Hi Dennis,

Warning: it is not a question of deleting the PDS datasets, but of deleting members in these PDS before rebuilding.

We use impactBuild mode for building, and we produce complete packages:

• Before building, we retrieve the previous package and we restore it to initialize the construction space: new constructions may require access to the results of previous constructions (for example we may need an object or an already built loadmodule to do a static linkedit on a newly built module)
• The impactBuild construction complements the PDS (and should remove results of builds for source removed in Git repository)
• We create a new Package that collects all PDS

[dennis-behm]

Hi Denis,

the way deletions are handled in zAppBuild is tricky. As you know, the build workspace can be seen as temporary; also it differs how the branching strategy is designed.

But, zAppbuild is equipped with a strategy to document deletions. It was introduced this year along with a new Record Type AnyTypeRecord. The way it is implemented, it will also try to remove the outputs from the build libraries. Please have a look to the implementation in https://github.com/IBM/dbb-zappbuild/blob/main/utilities/BuildReportUtilities.groovy .

So, with activating this feature of zAppBuild, I think you are able to complete the scenario when you are removing a source file.

However, it is not able to solve the scenario when the type of a program has changed from BATCH/DB2 to just BATCH. This is because, zAppBuild / DBB does not know about the previous characteristics or the previously produced outputs of a file. We talk about build maps which persist this information. But build maps are not available in DBB.

It is a very valid enhancement request of the product. Would you mind to please open a RFE on that on the ideas portal https://ideas.ibm.com/products/6672764845844154062