Deleting with a Generic File Name

Hey, Ted:

I've been working on the AS/400 for almost 15 years now, and I've always thought that a physical file could not be deleted until all the logical files based on the physical file had been deleted. However, while working on a problem dealing with deleting a physical file when a logical may or may not exist, I tried using a generic file name. My reading of the DLTF command description led me to believe that the files would not be deleted. To my surprise, the files--the physical file and the two logical files--were deleted. Did I misunderstand the description? Is this an undocumented feature? Has everyone but me known this for years?

--Jim

You're not the only one who didn't know this. If I knew it, I had forgotten it. I'm glad you brought this up, because we all need reminders of little things like this every now and then.

The documentation mentions that you can delete a group of files by specifying a generic name. The documentation does not say that the system will delete the logical files first, but that is the case. Even if a logical file's name comes after the physical file's name in the collating sequence, and even if the logical file is in a different library, as long as the logical file's name fits the generic name, OS/400 will delete it before attempting to delete the physical file.

If the name of a logical file does not fit the generic name, OS/400 will not delete the logical, and therefore will not delete the physical file. However, it will still delete the logical files whose names fit the generic pattern.

--Ted