Product News

Major Performance Improvement for c/XDC users!

Starting with update DBC-2302H, c/XDC users will notice two things:

  • They will quickly notice that the CWIDE and C80 profiles no longer display a LIST VSTACK command in their Watch Window.
  • They will also notice that STEP commands (PF9, PF10 and PF11) no longer perform sluggishly.

These two facts are related.

Using ALETs and Accessing Dataspaces with Dump/XDC

Just as classic z/XDC can access dataspaces in live storage, so can dump/XDC access dataspaces contained within a dump. Also like classic z/XDC, dump/XDC uses ALETs for accessing dataspaces.

The LIST RSA Command Has Been Fixed and Modernized!

At long last, we have turned our attention to the long languishing LIST RSA command and brought it forward into the modern era!

SYSPROGs: The z/XDC Maintenance Update Process has Changed!

We have made major changes to the processes for performing both maintenance updates and initial product installs:

  • WRT initial installs, we have completely done away with the use of SMP/E. Now the process is a straightforward unTERSE of an XMITs collection library followed by an XMIT-RECEIVEs job to create the several Product Libraries.
  • WRT maintenance updates, these now do full replacements of all Product Library content.

This means that the product shipment package for both initial installs and maintenance updates is the identically the same file for both purposes.

Major Performance Fix

Update DBC-2207D fixes a major performance bug in z/XDC. We urge all customers to download and install the fix as soon as possible...

Support added for the new Z16 Machine Instructions

IBM's new Z16 machine brings with it 22 new machine instructions as well as 16 new extended mnemonics. We have just published DBC-2206D to add support into z/XDC for formatting and displaying these new instructions.

New Tracing command - T BNC

There's a new TRACE command in town. It's called T BNC ("Branch-No-Call" trace). It works just like T BY except that it steps over subroutine calls! Specifically:

  • It follows your program's execution looking for branching instructions that will actually branch.
  • When execution reaches a linkage instruction (BAS, BAL, JAS, etc.),
  • And that instruction is being used to call a subroutine with return expected,
  • Then execution will not be followed into the subroutine.
  • Instead, recapture traps will be set at the return addresses,
  • And the subroutine will be allowed to run without being followed.

The major benefit of this change is that it makes it considerably more viable than previously to use conditional tracing!

A Grab Bag of Recent Command and Capabilities Changes

The last major change to z/XDC was the introduction of dump/XDC back in August. See LIST HELP DUMPS.) Since then we have published quite a number of fixes and changes of various sorts, as well as some lesser additions to z/XDC's commands and capabilities. This article is a brief summary of those additions.

All of the changes described below (as well as the rest of z/XDC) can be used both in classic z/XDC and when analyzing dumps via our dump/XDC Licensed Feature. 

For a complete index of all changes, see HELP MAINTENANCE.

Also, updated versions of the z/XDC Manuals have been published. You can find them under the Support Menu.

LIST PC# - Displays Lists of PC Routines Both in Live Storage and in Dumps

LIST  PC# is a new command that emits either summary lists or detailed displays of PC routines. The summary lists can show:

  • PCs available to a given aspace
  • PCs resident in a given aspace
  • PCs defined by the System Function Table (SFT)
  • PCs that are global to all aspaces (in addition to the SFT routines)
  • PCs that are private to particular aspaces
  • PCs that match a range or list of specific numbers 

dump/XDC added for troubleshooting IPCS dumps

dump/XDC is a new Licensed Feature that gives z/XDC the ability to examine SYSMDUMPs, IEATDUMPs, SVC dumps, operator dumps and stand alone dumps using z/XDC's command set (not just IPCS's).

Now, you can use both z/XDC and c/XDC mapping and formatting capabilities to display dumped storage as:

  • Source image assembler programs,
  • Source image C, C++, Metal C and System C programs,
  • System and user control blocks and data areas,
  • C variables, arrays, structures and slices,
  • And object code disassembly.

dump/XDC integrates into IPCS, so you can go back and forth using either product's commands when rummaging around in the dump. z/XDC will capture IPCS's reports and present them to you within z/XDC's own displays.

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