TERSE is an

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archive file format In computing, an archive file stores the content of one or more files, possibly compressed, with associated metadata such as file name, directory structure, error detection and correction information, commentary, compressed data archives, stor ...

that supports

lossless compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...

. A TERSE file may contain a sequential data set, a partitioned data set (PDS), partitioned data set extended (PDSE), or a ''large format dataset'' (DSNTYPE=LARGE). Any record format (RECFM) is allowed as long as the record length is less than 32 K (64 K for RECFM=VBS). Records may contain printer control characters. Terse files are compressed using a modification of Ziv, Lempel compression algorithm developed by Victor S. Miller and

Mark Wegman Mark N. Wegman is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to algorithms and compiler optimization. Wegman received his B.A. from New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined IBM Resea ...

at the

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. The Terse algorithm was proprietary to IBM; however, IBM has released an open source Java decompressor under the Apache 2 license. The compression/decompression program (called ''terse'' and ''unterse'')—AMATERSE or TRSMAIN—is available from IBM for

z/OS z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes, introduced by IBM in October 2000. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn was preceded by a string of MVS versions.Starting with the earliest: ...

; the

z/VM z/VM is the current version in IBM's VM family of virtual machine operating systems. First released in October 2000, z/VM remains in active use and development . It is directly based on technology and concepts dating back to the 1960s, particu ...

equivalents are the TERSE and DETERSE commands, for sequential datasets only. Versions for

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(2000, XP, 2003),

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, and Mac OS/X are available online.

AMATERSE

The following JCL can be used to invoke AMATERSE on z/OS (TRSMAIN uses INFILE and OUTFILE instead of SYSUT1 and SYSUT2): ppppp is PACK (compress), SPACK (compress, slower and compresses better), or UNPACK (uncompress) //jobname JOB ... //stepname EXEC PGM=AMATERSE,PARM=ppppp //SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=* //SYSUT1 DD DISP=SHR,DSN=input.dataset //SYSUT2 DD DISP=(NEW,CATLG),DCB=ddd,DSN=output.dataset, // SPACE=space_parameters //SYSUT3 DD DISP=(NEW,DELETE),SPACE=space_parameters Optional temporary dataset

Uses

Terse can be used as a general-purpose compression/decompression tool. IBM also distributes downloadable

Program temporary fix In IBM terminology, a Program temporary fix or Product temporary fix (PTF), sometimes depending on date, is a single bug fix, or group of fixes, distributed in a form ready to install for customers. A PTF normally follows an APAR ( Authorized Prog ...

s (PTFs) as tersed datasets. Terse is also used by IBM customers to package diagnostic information such as z/OS dumps and traces, for transmission to IBM.

References

External links

Terse PC versions at Vetusware
IBM software Archive formats Data compression American inventions {{Compu-stub