Characteristics and contents of the accounting file

The accounting file is a SAM file with variable record length. Systems support can specify the remaining file attributes both via the CREATE-FILE and MODIFY-FILE-ATTRIBUTES commands and via the accounting commands START-ACCOUNTING and CHANGE-ACCOUNTING-FILE.

The following points should be noted:

• The following default values apply:

  SPACE:	48 PAM blocks for primary allocation and 48 PAM blocks for secondary allocation
  BUFFER-LENGTH:	1 PAM block, or 2 PAM blocks for NK4 pubsets
  VOLUME:	determined by DMS

• If the VOLUME operand is specified with the accounting commands, only those volumes can be used which are automatically supported by the BS2000 Data Management System and which require no additional device information.
  If the accounting file is to be created on tape or private disk, it must be generated with the CREATE-FILE command before the accounting system is started. If a public disk is used that does not belong to the default pubset of the designated user ID, the catalog ID of the volume must be included in the file name.

• The accounting file is opened in EXTEND mode. This means that an existing file is extended.

• New accounting files are cataloged with the protection attributes ACCESS=WRITE and USER-ACCESS=OWNER-ONLY.
  No change of attributes is performed for any existing accounting files. Therefore systems support must make sure that the accounting file is assigned the appropriate attributes.

• If only a catalog entry is set up for a file but no storage space is reserved, (CREATE-FILE command with the operand SUPPORT=NONE), then any attempt to open this file as an accounting file will result in an error.
  To prevent this happening, systems support must assign primary storage space to the file before an attempt is made to open it.

The accounting routine writes the following information to the accounting file:

• task accounting

• program accounting

• device and volume accounting

• storage space accounting

• SPOOLOUT accounting

• user-specific accounting

• operations accounting

• resource availability

• service accounting

• accounting of unbundled products

• accounting of subsystems and subsystem tasks

In addition, information relating to program accounting and storage space accounting is periodically recorded by the accounting routine. In this way accurate accounting is possible for long-running programs and for certain job classes that are subject to such monitoring.

The accounting data is stored in the accounting file in individual accounting records. The accounting records have a variable length; the maximum record length amounts to 492 bytes without the record length field (496 bytes with the record length field).

For the structure of an accounting record see the “Accounting Records” manual [1].