Old dogs, new tricks: ISPF cut and paste

I had many members with RACF commands within JCL, and wanted to rationalise them so the definitions were in a couple of files, one for userid information, one for define commands, one for permits etc.. I remembered someone once talking about ISPF cut and paste, and this proved to be very useful.

I had a member with

//S1  EXEC PGM=IKJEFT01,REGION=0M 
//* EPLIB  DD  DISP=SHR,DSN=SYS1.MIGLIB 
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=* 
//SYSTSPRT DD SYSOUT=* 
//SYSTSIN DD *,SYMBOLS=(JCLONLY) 
SETROPTS GENERIC(MFADEF) GENCMD(MFADEF) 
RDEF MFADEF FACTOR.AZFSTC OWNER(IBMUSER) 
SETROPTS RACLIST(MFADEF) CLASSACT(MFADEF) 
/* 
/*

and wanted to copy the bold text from each file into other files.

Cut

I used the edit command cut .a .b define append with

000007 //SYSTSIN DD *,SYMBOLS=(JCLONLY) 
.a0008 SETROPTS GENERIC(MFADEF) GENCMD(MFADEF) 
000009 RDEF MFADEF FACTOR.AZFSTC OWNER(IBMUSER) 
.b0010 SETROPTS RACLIST(MFADEF) CLASSACT(MFADEF) 
000011 /*

this copied the three lines into a clipboard called define.

You can also use the line commands cc..cc and mm..mm.

For a different file I used CUT add append

000006 //SYSTSIN DD * 
cc     ADDUSER AZFSTC DFLTGRP(SYS1) OWNER(SYS1) - 
000008          OMVS(AUTOUID) - 
000009          NAME('MFA STC') - 
000010          NOPASSWORD NOOIDCARD - 
cc              RESTRICTED 
/*

and so on for each file.

If you use the line commands mm … mm it will delete it from the current file after the data has been copied to the clip board.

With PF12 set to retrieve it was easy to recall the cut command in each member.

Paste

After I had finished cutting the text I edited a member ADD and used the paste command. The basic syntax is paste clipboard

Command ===> paste add
A      ********************************* Top of Data ***...
****** ******************************** Bottom of Data *...

This takes all the data from the “add” clipboard, and puts it >A<fter the top line. Similarly I edited the DEFS file, and used the “paste defs” command to retrieve the data in the clipboard.

How do I do things with a subset of PDS members matching a pattern?

There are some clever things you can do on a subset of members of a PDS.

If you use ISPF (Browse) or ISPF 2 (Edit) you can specify a data set name of

‘COLIN.AAA.PROCLIB(%%%%%%00)’ and it displays only the members ending in 00.
‘COLIN.AAA.PROCLIB(*AH*)’ to display all member with an AH in the name.
‘COLIN.AAA.PROCLIB’ for all of the members.

If you use ISPF 3;4 I havent found a way of doing the same.

Acting on a subset.

If you have a list of members, for example ISPF 1,2,3;4 you can issue a primary command

sel *99 e

which says select all those members ending in 99, and use the command “e” in front. Similary sel %%%%%%00 b.

Sorting the list

You can sort the list by many fields, name, size last changed. For example “Sort Name”.

I have “Tab to point-and-shoot fields” enabled. I can tab to column headers, and press enter. The rows are sorted by this column.

I often use “sort changed” to find the ones I changed recently, and “sort id” to see who else has been changing the members.

Srchfor

I use “srchfor ” or “srchfor value” to look for the members containing a string (or two).

When this command has completed tab to “prompt” and press enter, or enter “sort prompt” to sort the members with hit to the top of the list.

Refresh

If the member list has changed, you can use “refresh” to refresh it.

How do I compare the directories of two PDS(E)s?

I wanted to compare two directories to find the differences. I could see that the number of members was different, but it was hard to see what was missing.

I browsed the web, and found that this was a commonly asked question, and often the solution was to write some Rexx and use the ISPF LM* functions. I felt this was the wrong way.

I had used Superc to compare members of different files – could it tell me same information about the member list – yes!

SuperC has different compare types

File – Compares source data sets for differences, but does not show what
the differences are.
Line – Compares source data sets for line differences. It is record-oriented and points out inserted or deleted lines.
Word – Compares source data sets for word differences. If two data sets contain the same words in the same order, SuperC considers them to be identical, even if those words are not
on the same lines.
Byte – Compares source data sets for byte differences. This compare type is most useful for comparing machine readable data.

Example output of the File comparison type.

NEW: COLIN.ZZZ.PROCLIB  OLD: HLQ.Y.ABCNPARU                                                                                     
MEMBER SUMMARY LISTING (FILE COMPARE)                                                                                     
DIFF SAME MEMBERS   N-BYTES O-BYTES N-LINES O-LINES  HASH1 HASH2 
                                                                                     
 **       ABC11111   171120  173200    2139    2165  78D5C 1113D
      **  ABC9999       640     640       8       8  AB58A AB58A

We can see

ABC1111 is different because the “**” in the DIFF column, and the hash code at the right is different
ABC9999 is the same in each because the “**” is in the SAME column, and the hash value is the same

You also get a summary of differences

   10   TOTAL MEMBER(S) PROCESSED AS A PDS 
    1   TOTAL MEMBER(S) PROCESSED HAD CHANGES 
    9   TOTAL MEMBER(S) PROCESSED HAD NO CHANGES 
    9   TOTAL NEW FILE MEMBER(S) NOT PAIRED 
  179   TOTAL OLD FILE MEMBER(S) NOT PAIRED

List of members not in both

MEMBER SUMMARY LISTING (FILE COMPARE)                                 
NON-PAIRED NEW FILE MEMBERS | NON-PAIRED OLD FILE MEMBERS               
     ABC$$$$$               |       ZAA$$$$ 
     ABCSCLRR               |       ZYZAPST5 
                            |       ZYZAPST6

Member ABC$$$$ and one other are in the “new” PDS, but not in the “old” PDS.
Member ZAA$$$$ and 2 others are in “old” PDS, but not in the “new” PDS.

Like most things – easy – once you know how do to it!

Using Line mode

When I used line mode I got output like

                                                  N-LN# O-LN# 
I - SYSNAME                      &SYSNAME.        00004 00003
D - SYSNAME                      S0W1

For one member, the “new-file” at line 4 was similar to the line in the “old-file” at line 3.

To get from the old file to the new file, delete the line with S0W1 in it and insert the line with &SYSNAME.