Skeleton Imbedding

ChangeMan ZMF uses the imbed facility of ISPF file tailoring to reduce redundancy. Common functions are coded in a skeleton. The common skeleton is then imbedded in other skeletons with the )IM control statement.

Imbedded skeletons can contain imbeds for other skeletons. ISPF file tailoring limits imbeds to 15 levels of imbedding. If you attempt further, you will get an error with the skeleton name and record number that attempted to exceed that limit; for example, Exceeds maximum )IM level of 15, CMN014 record-3

Each ChangeMan ZMF skeleton begins with a JCL comment (except skeletons that generate JOB statements). This JCL comment contains the name of the skeleton. ISPF file tailoring passes JCL comments in skeletons directly to the output JCL. You can find the names of all of the ChangeMan ZMF skeletons used to generate a job by looking for JCL comments that look like this:

//*)IM CMNxxxxx

The sequence of these JCL comments shows the sequence of skeletons processed by ISPF file tailoring to generate a job. The sequence may mean that a skeleton is imbedded in a skeleton named previously in a JCL comment in the job.

See Appendix B. Analyzing ZMF ISPF Skeletons for tables that show the hierarchy of imbedded ChangeMan ZMF skeletons. The appendix also provides instructions for analyzing skeleton imbed hierarchies, which you can use to analyze your customized skeleton structures.