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Data Control Block

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In high-end IBM mainframe operating systems (OS/360, MVS, z/OS) a Data Control Block (DCB) is the description of a dataset in a program. A DCB is coded in Assembler programs using the DCB macro instruction (which expands in a large number of "define constant" instructions). High level language programmers use library routines containing DCBs.

A DCB is one of the many control Blocks used in these operating systems. A control block is similar to a C structure, but typically only related to systems functions. A DCB may be compared to a FILE structure for PC and Unix stream I/O, but it is much more complex, offering many, many options for various access methods.

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