ISPF Refresher

ISPF

ISPF (Interactive Spool Productivity Facility) is a popular editor in the mainframe

platform. There are two kinds of commands that can be entered in edit/view panel of

ISPF editor.

They are: 

1.    Primary Commands that can be entered in the Command Line.

2.    Line Commands that can be entered in the line(s).

Mastering in these commands will be highly helpful in analyzing/developing application programs.

Primary Command	Meaning
KEYS	Displays the PF Keys and its definition for that panel
PFSHOW	Shows PF Keys definition at the bottom of panel. To OFF this option enter PHSHOW OFF.
RESET	Clears all message lines and reset the display of the dataset. RESET LABEL is required to clear labels.
X ALL	Exclude all the lines
COLUMNS/COLS / COLS ON/COL	Display a ruler at the top of the screen. This can be removed by COLS OFF or RESET.
TOP/BOT	Move to the TOP or BOTTOM of the file.
HEX	Displays the data in Hexadecimal mode. Type HEX OFF to come back to normal display. Highly helpful for reading computational fields and low-values.
SWAP	Switch between split screens.
SWAP LIST	Lists the available screens.
CUT	With C or CC line command, this will copy the lines to temporary storage. CUT .A .B will cut the lines in between the labels A & B.
CUT DISPLAY	Display the lines already cut.
CUT APPEND	Appended the lines to the lines already cut.
PASTE	Paste the already cut lines. Line commands A or B should be used before issuing paste to indicate after or before which line this paste should occur.
SCRNAME XXXXX	The current screen is named as XXXXX. If you are using multiple split screens, then you can come back to this screen by SWAP XXXXX line command. Its good convention to name the screens with the purpose so that you can easily come back.  By default the screens are named with numbers.
LOCATE line-number/Label	Locates the line-number or the label. Labels can be established in any line by the line command .labelname.
RECOVERY ON RECOVERY OFF RECOVERY OFF UNWARN UNDO	With RECOVERY on, UNDO line command will revert the last recent change made in the edit/view session.  REC OFF will off the recovery option and UNDO Unavailable message will appear in the first line. REC OFF UNWARN is same as REC OFF but there won’t be any UNDO unavailable warning message.
F ‘Musa’ F ‘Musa’ 1 F ‘Musa’ 1 30	Locates the next ‘Musa’. Locates the next ‘Musa’ in the first column Locates the next ‘Musa’ that appear anywhere between column 1 and 30. The above commands will do the find from the current cursor position and place the cursor over the string found.
F ‘Musa’ ALL F ‘Musa’ FIRST/LAST F ‘Musa’ NEXT/PREV	Independent of cursor position, this will count all the ‘Musa’ and displays the total count in the upper right corner and place the cursor over the first occurrence from top.  Locates the First/Last ‘Musa’ in the dataset/member opened. Locates the Next/Previous ‘Musa’ with respect to the current cursor position in the dataset/member opened. Note: ALL/FIRST/NEXT/PREV/LAST are mutually exclusive keywords.
F ‘Musa’ CHARS F ‘Musa’ WORD F ‘Musa’ PREFIX/SUFFIX	This is same as F ‘Musa’. Look for ‘Musa’. Look for ‘ Musa ‘. Word is a string followed and prefixed by space. Look for ‘Musa’ as a prefix or suffix with some other strings. Note: PREFIX/SUFFIX/WORD/CHARS are mutually exclusive.
F ‘Musa’ X	Locates the string ‘Musa’ in excluded lines. NX searches the string only in non-excluded lines. Note: X/NX are mutually exclusive with each other.
F * NEXT	Locates the next occurrence of the string that was searched in the last find command.
C ALL ‘Musa’  ‘Muthu’	Changes all  ‘Musa’ as ‘Muthu’. Note: Change command is nothing but find and replace. So from string can be qualified with other keywords available in FIND command. Ex C ‘st1’ ‘str2’ 1 replaces only the str1 that are in first position to str2.
DEL ALL X/NX	Delete all the excluded/Not excluded lines. DEL .A .B deletes all the lines between .A and .B
;	Represents Enter key. So multiple commands can be given in one shot with ‘;’ separation.
SORT 5 15 A	Sorts in 5-15 in ascending sequence. Maximum 5 fields can be given. D for descending.

Special String Characters that can be used with FIND and CHANGE:

Char	Meaning	Char	Meaning
P’=’	Displays any character	P’.’	Displays any non-displayable character
P’#’	Displays any numeric	P’-‘	Displays any non-numeric
P’@’	Displays any alphabetic	P’<’	Displays any lower-case alphabetic
P’>’	Displays any upper-case alphabetic	P’$’	Displays any special character.
X’nn’	Finds the hex value of nn.	P ‘¬’	Displays any non-blank character

C P ‘¬’ ‘ ‘ 73 80 ALL changes all non-blank characters in 73-80 to spaces.

Primary commands prefixed with & (ampersand) is left in the command line after execution. This way the same command can be entered multiple times without retyping it in each time.

Primary Commands Mapping to PF Key

Any of the line commands can be mapped to a PF key and invoked by pressing that key. Example if you map ‘X ALL’ command with PF4, then every time PF4 is pressed, all the lines are excluded. Mapping can be done by the line command KEYS. In this way, 24 keys PF1-PF24 can be mapped. PF13-PF24 is nothing but Shift + PF1- PF12.

Typical assignment of the keys is given below:

PF1	Help
PF2	SPLIT  - Split the screen at the cursor’s location
PF3	Exit
PF4	Exit or RETURN
PF5	RFIND - Find next occurrence of the last F command
PF6	RCHANGE – Change next occurrence of the last C command
PF7	UP
PF8	DOWN
PF9	SWAP
PF10	LEFT
PF11	RIGHT
PF12	RETRIEVE - repeats the previous command line command

LINE Commands:

Com- mand	Meaning	Com- Mand	Meaning
C	Copy this line. C 10 copies 10 lines. This will be followed by the line commands A or B.	CC	Copy the block of lines
M	Move this line. M 10 copies move 10 lines. This will be followed by the line commands A or B.	MM	Move the block of lines
A/B	After(A)/Before(B) this line, place the copied/moved line(s). A10 repeats the copied/moved lines 10 times.
R n	Repeats the current line n times. Just R repeat 1 time.	RR	Repeats the block of lines. RR 10 repeats the block 10 times.
UC	Change this line content to uppercase	UCC	Changes the content of the blocked lines to upper-case
LC	Change this line content to lower-case	LCC	Changes the content of the blocked lines to lower-case
D	Deletes the line. ‘D n ‘ deletes n lines from this line.	DD	Deletes the block of lines.
I	Insert 1 line. After entering the data in the first line, next line will be inserted. Useful for line by line data entry	I 10	Insert 10 lines. Once enter is pressed, the remaining untouched lines will be removed. Useful for control-C, control-V actions
X	Exclude this line. X10 excludes 10 lines starting with this line.	XX	Exclude a block of lines.
S	Show one line of the excluded text. S 10 shows 10 lines.	F/L	Shows the First/last line of excluded text. L 10 shows the last 10 lines.
)n	Shift the line content by n columns to the right side.(outside). >n is same as )n but in case of data truncation, operation will be error out.	))n	Shift the block of lines by n columns to the right side. >>n is same as ))n but in case of data truncation, operation will be error out.
(n	Shift the line content by n columns to the left side.(inside)

((n

Shift the block of lines by n columns to the left side.

<

TS n

To split text in two at the point of cursor to allow a word, phrase or sentence to be inserted. N number of lines are inserted between the two parts of text.

TF n

To flow fragments of sentences into paragraph. N defines the width.

TE

Text Entry mode is used for bulk entry of text and allows power typing techniques to be used at the terminal. (Type data without bothering about end of line, line numbers etc .The FINAL enter will re flow the data.) 

BNDS

To process only over a column of data, define the range of columns using BNDS line command.

MASK

It allows to put fixed data into the new lines being entered.

Type MASK over a line number and press enter. Overtype the mask with whatever we want. Now every time we enter new lines with I, TE, TS – mask lines will be displayed rather than empty lines.

O 

(over

lay)

Overlay command indicates the target line(s) when merging lines. Overlay is used in conjunction with M or C line commands.

C 0300 *   

O 0400     MVSQuest

Result:

  0300 *   

  0400 *   MVSQuest

O10 overlaid the first 10 lines. OO-OO overlaid the block of lines.

TSO

Frequently used TSO commands are listed in the table. They can be issued from any ISPF panel with TSO prefix. TSO prefix is not required if you execute them in TSO panel. (Option 6 of ISPF)

If the command is incomplete, TSO prompts for the missed parameters.

The output of the processed command is displayed in ISPF, in line mode.

SYS1.HELP dataset contains all the TSO commands, syntax and their usage.

Command Syntax	Purpose
HELP [COMMAND]	Displays the purpose and syntax of the command. The source for this information is retrieved from ‘SYS1.HELP’. Ex: HELP ALLOCATE
SEND	It is used to communicate with other users. SEND ‘REFRESHER COMPLETED’ USER(SMSXL86) LOGON Message ‘hi’ is sent to user SMSXL86. If the user is not logged on, the message should be displayed the next time user logs on. LOGON is an optional parameter. Message: 115 chars maximum
LISTCAT	It is used to list entries in MVS catalog. The syntax and the available options are explained in VSAM - IDCAMS section. LISTCAT ENTRIES’SMSXL86.TEST.SOURCE’ ALL
LISTDS	It is used get the information about one or more datasets. LISTDS ‘dataset-name’ MEMBERS|HISTORY|STATUS|LEVEL MEMBERS list all the members of a PDS. This command is useful in REXX to process all the members of a PDS.
RENAME	It is used to rename a dataset. Generic datasets are allowed. RENAME ‘BPAMAIN.TEST.*’  ‘BPMAIN.UNIT.*’ renames all the datasets start with BPMAIN.TEST to BPMAIN.UNIT. RENAME ‘SMSXL86.TEST(MEM1)’  ‘MEM2’ renames mem1 as mem2 in the PDS ‘SMSXL86.TEST’.
DELETE	It is used to delete dataset(s). PURGE qualifier is needed to bypass expiration date checking. DELETE ‘BPMAIN.TEST.*’ PURGE
ALLOCATE (Existing dataset)	ALLOCATE DA(‘SMSXL86.TEST.SOURCE’) FILE(INP) SHR It allocates the dataset ‘SMSXL86.TEST.SOURCE’ with logical name INP. INP can be used in REXX for READ/WRITE.
ALLOCATE (New dataset)	Allocation can be done using model-dataset attributes or with new attributes or combination of both. Attributes that can be specified are: UNIT, VOLUME, SPACE, TRACKS|CYLINDERS|BLOCK(blk-length), DIR, RECFM, LRECL, BLKSIZE, DATACLASS, STORCLAS, MGMTCLAS, EXPDT/RETPD. Model parameter: LIKE(‘model-dataset’)
FREE	De-allocate the allocated-datasets. FREE FI(logical-name) FREE DSNAME(‘dataset-name’) FREE ALL
ISRDDN	It displays the files/datasets allocated to your session. ‘M member’ command searches the member in all the datasets allocated to you. If you want to see the source of a utility, give a search using the command ‘ M utility-name’ in the ISRDDN panel.
CALL	It is used to execute a load module. CALL ‘BPMAIN.TEST.LOADLIB(TEST1)’ – Executes the load TEST1. If the program needs any datasets, then they should be allocated before issuing this command.
SUBMIT	It is used to submit a job to JES.  SUBMIT ‘PDS(MEMBER)’[ JOBCHAR(‘A’)]
CANCEL	It is used to CANCEL /PURGE the job from JES. CANCEL JOB-NAME| JOB-NAME(JOB-ID) [PURGE]
STATUS	It is used to get the status of the submitted-job in JES. STATUS JOB-NAME | JOB-NAME(JOB-ID)
ALTER	It is used to alter the attributes of a dataset. Ex: Management class.

TSO Commands can be executed in batch (JCL) using terminal monitor program IKJEFT01.

//RUNBATCH EXEC PGM=IKJEFT01

//SYSTSPRT DD SYSOUT=*

//SYSTSIN   DD *

  RENAME ‘MVSQUEST.EMP.DATA’ ‘LEADSOFT.EMP.DATA’

  RENAME ‘ MVSQUEST.SALES.DATA’ ‘LEADSOFT.EMP.DATA’

/*

The above step renames two datasets from MVSQUEST qualifier to LEADSOFT qualifier. Any high volume manual job can be completed in matter of minutes if you have good knowledge in ISPF and TSO commands with little exposure to REXX.