SoftBase Systems, Inc.

SOFTDATE

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SoftDate is a tool that permits you to test MVS programs with a simulated past or future system date.

Many programs have features that are activated only under certain date conditions - such as end of month, end of year, policy anniversary, bond maturity, licence expiration, etc. This type of date-dependent processing is virtually universal across a wide variety of applications found in all industry segments. Such programs cannot be fully tested without executing them under simulated current date conditions that will trigger these special processing paths.

SoftDate gives you a simple mechanism to test date-dependent logic in your programs without requiring cumbersome and expensive procedures such as �IPL�ing a test LPAR with the required date. SoftDate can be turned on for a single job step or CICS user without impacting other work running in the same MVS image or CICS region.

How does SoftDate work?

SoftDate works by dynamically front-ending system routines that may be used for obtaining the current date and time. This front-ending occurs only in regions where it is required. Other regions and system processes that do not require SoftDate are completely unaffected.

In cases where it is needed, SoftDate lets the system routine return the current date and time and then applies the adjustment factor requested by the user.

The process for using SoftDate varies slightly depending on whether it is being used for a batch job or a CICS system.

The SoftDate �Minimum Impact� approach

Past approaches to system date simulation have invariably involved applying modifications to system routines. These patches allowed the simulation product to gain control whenever any program running in the MVS system requested the current system date or time. The product would then typically scan its own internal tables to determine if the caller required a simulated date and return the simulated value if so, or otherwise pass the call off to the standard system routine.

This is a high impact approach because:

Every date request issued by any program running in the MVS system will incur overhead. Date requests are issued by many system components as well as application programs and there can easily be thousands or more of these per second in a busy MVS system. The additional overhead introduced by the simulator can be a substantial cost, particularly when you consider that at any particular time there will usually be no (or only a very small number) actual users of it, but yet every process running on the MVS system will still be penalized.
The entire MVS system will be exposed to any stability problems (i.e. bugs) that may exist in the product.

By contrast, the SoftDate approach confines its impact to only those regions that actually require it.

Apart from:

Using a small amount of global common storage, and
Running a small amount of extra code once during the initiation of each new job step (which only adds an immeasurably small amount of extra processing time to each job step),

There is no impact from SoftDate on regions which are not actively using it. There are no permanent changes to any system routine, and any region that is running without SoftDate being active will execute only standard, unmodified system code.

Applications that require time-sensitive logic also require time-sensitive testing for all possible date and time outcomes. SoftDate provides the ability to correctly test against these predicted time events.

For more information or a web demonstration of SoftBase SoftDate, please Click Here.

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