Partitioned data set
<file format> (PDS) A
data set on an
IBM mainframe that contains members, each of which acts like a separate data set. Partitioned data sets are more space-efficient than individual data sets, because they can put more than one data set on a track.
They are also used to hold libraries, with one function per member.
The syntax for a member is NAME.OF.PDS(MEMBER) although some systems (such as
Phoenix) could use NAME.OF.PDS:MEMBER
Original PDSes were of fixed size, and needed frequent
compression to recover space after deleting or changing members.
Newer PDS/E Extended PDSes do not have this problem.
