DSPFD and DSPFFD commands

The Display File Description (DSPFD) and Display File Field Description (DSPFFD) commands can display information about a remote VSAM data set.

However, the information for many of the fields is not available to CICS/DDM and is not returned to i5/OS™ DDM. Refer to the following table for the fields that CICS/DDM does not return:

Table 1. CICS/DDM file and file field descriptions
Field	Value
Creation date	Zeros
Current number of records	Zeros
Data space in bytes	Zeros
File level identifier	Zeros
File text description	Zeros
Format level identifier	Blanks
Last change date and time	Zeros
Member creation date	Zeros
Member expiration date	*NONE
Member level identifier	Zeros
Member size	*NOMAX
Number of deleted records	Zeros
Text description	Blanks
Total deleted records	Zeros
Total member size	Zeros
Total records	Zeros
Note: The values displayed do not represent actual data about the file. They act as default values for the information that CICS/DDM does not return.

When the type of file is logical, the information displayed shows that unique keys are not required. In fact, CICS/DDM does not know whether unique keys are required or not.

Sometimes, the iSeries™ user needs to know the type of VSAM data set being accessed. By using the following information, which is displayed by the DSPFD command, it is possible for the iSeries user to make this decision:

If the type of file is logical, the VSAM data set is a VSAM path.
If the type of file is physical and the access path is keyed, the VSAM data set is KSDS.
In all other cases, the VSAM data set is either an RRDS or an ESDS. If the iSeries user must know whether it is an RRDS or an ESDS, the CICS^® system programmer should be contacted.