When you copy files involving disks, tapes, or CD-ROMs on the local host (that is, the COPY statement does not include any HOSTNAME specifications), the copy process is done by the internal system program called *LIBRARY/MAINTENANCE which is described in the following section. When you copy files involving disks, tapes, or CD‑ROMs on other host systems, the copy process is handled by a file transfer service.
The COPY statement can copy files from the following types of media:
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The COPY statement cannot copy files from tapes that were written by programs other than library maintenance, or from CD-ROMs that are not in library maintenance format. Disks do not have this restriction.
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When copying to a CD-ROM, use the MULTIVOLUME attribute if more than one CD-ROM is required due to the amount of data. Refer to the MULTIVOLUME description in "Additional File Attributes" later in this subsection.
When the COPY or ADD statement operates on a file with a FILEKIND of FIFO, and you either copy or add files within the same host or you copy or add files using the NFT file transfer service, then a description of the FIFO is copied. However, any queued data is not copied.
When the COPY or ADD statement operates on a file with a FILEKIND of FIFO, and the statement uses other file transfer services such as Host Services, then the FIFO is not copied and an error occurs.
For further information about the features and limitations of the various file transfer services, see “COPY File Transfer Services” later in this section. Most of the descriptions of the COPY or ADD statement apply to both library maintenance and file transfers.
