The key word in the title is easily. If you search for “Working with an edit line command table”, the documentation gives you instructions on how to create a table, then add your definition, create your macro, and then use it. When you were expecting to do this invisibly for the end user, it is a lot of work.

A command line rexx program can process line commands. I created a command line program so when I use it, and use S or SS..SS line commands, the macro can extract the tagged lines, and so do things with the tagged data.

The command line Rexx

/* REXX */ 
address isredit 
'MACRO (a) NOPROCESS ' 
'process range S             ' 
IF RC = 0 
THEN DO 
  "(first) = LINENUM .ZFRANGE" 
  "(last) = LINENUM .ZLRANGE" 
  data = "" 
  /* build up a long string from the tagged lines */
  do i = first to last 
    "(l) = LINE (i)" 
    data = data || strip(l) || " " 
  end 
  l = data 
  address ispexec "edit dataset('COLIN.$$TEMP$$') macro(l2) parm(l)" 
END 

Where the lines of interest are

• ‘MACRO (a) NOPROCESS ‘
  • Usually when a command line macro is processed, ISPF processes any outstanding line commands (such as D) before processing any commands in the rexx exec. The NOPROCESS says – hold off doing this until instructed.
  • a is the data passed in
• ‘process range S ‘
  • This locates any line commands beginning with S, for a single line, or SS…SS for multiple lins.
• if rc = 0 then do
• “(first) = LINENUM .ZFRANGE”
  • get the line number of the First in the RANGE
• “(last) = LINENUM .ZLRANGE”
  • get the line number of the Last in the Range.
• data = “”
• do i = first to last /* process the data build up the string */
  • “(l) = LINE (i)”
  • data = data || strip(l) || ” “
• end
• ldata = data
• address ispexec “edit dataset(‘COLIN.$$TEMP$$’) macro(l2) parm(ldata)”
  • Invoke edit on a file – invoke macro l2, and pass the data in the rexx variable ldata
• END

If the “process range” gives a non zero return code, set an error message

else do 
  zedsmsg = 'You need to specify line prefix s|ss ss' 
  zedlmsg = 'You need to specify line prefix s|ss ss long message' 
  address ispexec  'SETMSG MSG(ISRZ001)' 
end 

This sets a Short message (zedSmsg) which is display at the top right of the display, and a long message (zedLmsg) if the user presses PF1 on the short message.

Macro L2

This macro is processed when the edit dataset(..) macro(l2) command is issued

/* REXX */ 
address isredit 
'MACRO (a)              ' 

say "Passed data" a
...