Common C Library for z/OS ports

[IgorTodorovskiIBM]

Why should we consider introducing a common library for z/OS ports?

As we continue to port tools to z/OS, we continue to encounter the following issues:

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• Problem: We need to identify where new file descriptors are created as newly created file descriptors need to be tagged to support autotagging in enhanced ascii mode
• Solution: Use a library to overrides LE open/pipe and tag the new file descriptors without changes to the project source code

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• Problem: Implement or workaround missing Linux/POSIX functions in LE
• Solution: Write it once in a library and expose it to all other z/OS ports

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• Problem: Many of the ports have their own solution for how to handle ASCII/EBCDIC I/O, especially how untagged files are handled
• Solution: Write a library to handle ASCII/EBCDIC considerations and introduce consistent environment variables

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Idea:

• Each project will Introduce a dependency to this common library. This would mean adding the -I option to find the headers, the -L option to find the libraries and the -l option to link to the library/sidedeck
• As we upstream our ports, we need to make sure that the various open source communities are willing to adopt the library.

Recommendation:

• Leverage an existing library like zoslib which is currently being used for the Node.js on z/OS project.

Any thoughts? other suggestions? Let us know!

[MikeFultonDev]

done. we use zoslib