Understand programmatically if ftp client will fetch a dataset from zOS with RDW or without

Question

If I connect using FTP to zOS, I can run rstatus command and in 68 lines returned I get one of the two following human readable lines:

RDWs from variable format data sets are discarded.

RDWs from variable format data sets are retained as part of the data.

Is there a way for a program to understand what is the status regarding RDW without parsing the 68 lines returned by rstatus, and without evaluating text that is intended for a human reader? (and therefor might change in the future without notice)

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm unaware of a programmatic interface but you can specify how you want RDWs handled so you don't have to parse the current state. This can be done with the SITE command from the client to the mainframe. See reference in this question

Note: The settings in FTP.DATA will determine the default behaviour. Review this reference in the documentation.

SITE RDW

Specifies that Variable Record Descriptors (RDW) are treated as if they were part of the record and not discarded during ftp transmission of VB or VBS data sets in other than block mode. RDW information is stored in a binary halfword. Transfer files in binary to avoid translation problems that can occur if you transfer this binary field in EBCDIC or ASCII.

SITE NORDW

Specifies that Variable Record Descriptors (RDW) are discarded during ftp transmission of VB or VBS data sets in other than block mode.