How to capture TSO command output into an ISPF edit session

One way of doing this, is to run a TSO command in batch, use SDSF to look at the output, and then use SE to edit the spool file.

This was too boring, so I wrote a quick macro ETSO

/* REXX /  parse source p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 env p9  
if env = "ISPF" then  
do    
  ADDRESS ISPEXEC    
  "ISREDIT MACRO (cmd ,REST)"  
end  
else  
do
    Say "This has to run from an ISPF edit session " 
   return 8;  
end  
/* prevent auto save … user has to explicitly save or cancel*/  
"ISREDIT autoSave off prompt"  
x = OUTTRAP('VAR.')  
address tso   cmd rest  
y = OUTTRAP('OFF')  
/* insert each record in turn last to first at the top of the file */ 
do i = var.0 to 1 by -1 
  "ISREDIT LINE_AFTER 0  = '"var.i"'" 
end 
exit

This macro needs to go into a dataset in SYSEXEC or SYSPROC concatenation – See TSO ISRDDN. I typed etso LU in an edit session, and it inserted the output of the TSO LU the top of the file.

For capturing long lines of output, you’ll need to be in a file with a long record length.

Neat!

To create a temporary dataset to run the above command I created another rexx called TEMPDSN

/* REXX */
parse source p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 env p9
if env = "ISPF" then
do
  ADDRESS ISPEXEC
  "ISREDIT MACRO (cmd ,REST)"
end
else
do
  Say "This has to run from an ISPF session "
  return 8;
end
u = userid()
address TSO "ALLOC DSN('"u".temptemp') space(1,1) tracks NEW DELETE ",
"BLKSIZE(1330) LRECL(133) recfm(F B) DDNAME(MYDD)"
if (rc <> 0) then exit
address ISPEXEC "EDIT DATASET('"u".temptemp')"
address TSO "FREE DDNAME(MYDD)"

You can then do even cleverer things by having TEMPDSN calling ETSO as a macro, and passing parameters using the ISPF variable support from the TSO command line.

Updated TEMPDSN, changes in bold.

/* REXX */ 
parse source p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 env p9 
say "env" env 
if env = "ISPF" then 
do 
   ADDRESS ISPEXEC 
   "ISREDIT MACRO (cmd ,REST)" 
end 
else 
do 
   Say "This has to run from an ISPF session " 
   return 8; 
end 
tempargs = "" 
/* if we were passed  any parameters */
parse arg args 
if ( length(args) > 0) then
do 
tempargs = args 
"VPUT tempargs profile" 
end 

u = userid() 
address TSO "ALLOC DSN('"u".temptemp') space(1,1) tracks NEW DELETE ", 
"BLKSIZE(1330) LRECL(133) recfm(F B) DDNAME(MYDD)" 
if (rc <> 0) then exit 
address ISPEXEC "EDIT DATASET('"u".temptemp') MACRO(ETSO)" 
address TSO "FREE DDNAME(MYDD)" 

if ( length(tempargs) > 0) then 
do 
"VERASE tempargs profile" 
end  

and the macro ETSO has

/* REXX */ 
parse source p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 env p9 
if env = "ISPF" then 
do 
   ADDRESS ISPEXEC 
  "ISREDIT MACRO (cmd ,REST)" 
end 
else 
do 
   Say "This has to run from an ISPF edit session " 
   return 8; 
end 
/* prevent auto save ... user has to explicitly save or cancel*/ 
"ISREDIT autoSave off prompt" 
if (length(cmd) = 0) then 
do 
   "VGET tempargs " PROFILE 
   if (rc = 0) then
   cmd = tempargs 
end 
x = OUTTRAP('VAR.') 
address tso cmd rest 
y = OUTTRAP('OFF') 
/* insert each record at the top of the file */ 
do i = var.0 to 1 by -1 
  "ISREDIT LINE_AFTER 0 = '"var.i"'" 
end 
EXIT  

From ISPF 6, a TSO command line, I issued tempdsn racdcert list certauth  and it gave me the file with the output from the command, and the file has record length of 133.  If you try to  save the data,  the data set will be deleted on close.