Add support for handling `*ALIAS` data sets

[zFernand0]

Is your feature or enhancement request related to a problem or limitation? Please describe

Today, the SDKs and the CLI have a hard time fully supporting alias datasets. This is partially due to a z/OSMF limitation on how aliases are handled over the /zosfiles REST APIs. See how the CLI and SDKs handle most CRUD operations: (see details in https://github.com/zowe/vscode-extension-for-zowe/issues/2699#issuecomment-1942784425)

Describe your enhancement idea

Since alias data sets have a volume of *ALIAS, we can attempt to handle creation and deletion a bit differently. Consider the following commands:

• zowe files create [alias-data-set | alias] <aliasDS> <targetDS>

  • For example: zowe files create alias USERID.PUBLIC.CNTL.ALIAS USERID.PUBLIC.CNTL
  • This will be submitting a job with a small IDCAMS statement

    
    //TESTSTEP JOB (IZUACCT),'USERID',CLASS=A,REGION=0M
    //STEP1    EXEC   PGM=IDCAMS
    //SYSPRINT DD     SYSOUT=A
    //SYSIN    DD     *
      DEFINE ALIAS -
           (NAME(USERID.PUBLIC.CNTL.ALIAS) -
           RELATE(USERID.PUBLIC.CNTL) )
    /*

• zowe files delete alias <aliasDS>
  • We can add an the aliases alias-data-set | alias to the zowe files delete zfs command,
  • OR we create an entire new command definition with the same underlying API

Describe alternatives you've considered

Recommend people to submit their own IDCAMS to create aliases, and use the zowe files del zfs to delete them

Provide any additional context

Please see the contents of the comment below for more details:

• https://github.com/zowe/vscode-extension-for-zowe/issues/2699#issuecomment-1942784425

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[PowderPop]

I feel like Aliases used to work, but have recently stopped. I occasionally create datasets with a prefix to allow sharing, but then create an Alias to follow more regular (userid based conventios) e.g. HLQ.PUBLIC.EXEC is aliased as HLQ.USERID.EXEC. But when I try to open HLQ.USERID.EXEC it fails thinking it's binary! It should lookup the alias and proceed to open the related (root) dataset.

[zFernand0]

Hey @PowderPop, Read and write operations on aliases should still work from the CLI. The only thing that the CLI does not properly handle (unless users do this with their own JCL) is to create and delete aliases. For more details on what's supported from the CLI and Zowe Explorer perspective, see the comment below:

• https://github.com/zowe/zowe-explorer-vscode/issues/2699#issuecomment-1942784425