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Dear Mr. Griffiths:
Thank you for submitting this IMS enhancement request.
After giving the request a comprehensive review, we have determined that we cannot include it as a candidate in an upcoming release because the request has a high implementation cost with a low relative value. As a consequence we have, unfortunately, rejected this request.
We appreciate your input to the IMS development team. We also hope that you will continue to submit ideas for improvements as customer feedback is a key component to shaping the future direction of IMS.
Sincerely,
Patrick Schroeck
Since this is not something that happens on a regular basis and in view of the effort which apparently would be required to implement this requirement I suggest we close it.
DBRC retains the high key as a partition string when changing from high key to using a partition selection routine (PSE). High keys must be unique so it's OK to keep them as partition strings. The other way around is not true though. Partition strings are not guaranteed to be unique. That is why we clear them when changing from using a routine to being a high key HALDB. There are a couple other reasons why they are cleared. One is that high keys are a fixed length (set in the DBD). Partition strings can be from 0-256 bytes. Therefore, converting strings to high keys may not be straightforward. Another reason is that the partitions of high-key HALDBs are chained in high key order. This would be another step to take in the conversion you request. Clearing the string and having the user set the high keys is less error prone.
I don't imagine that the sizing for this request is too large, but it is not a minor effort either. I would like to understand if this conversion from selection routine to high key is something that would commonly be done.