On Mon, 1 Mar 2010 14:34:41 -0500, Dave Salt wrote:
>
>The vast majority of ISPF applications are not case sensitive and have no need
>to be. By default, ISPF converts all input to uppercase. For ISPF dialog
>developers, this is good. The words "vast majority" and "default" go
>hand-in-hand, and IBM came up with the correct default. Three cheers for IBM
>for getting it right!
>
Actually, no. The vast majority of ISPF applications _are_ case
sensitive (although they don't need to be). If they were case
insensitive, there'd be no need to convert their input to upper case.
>Let's say you're in an ISPF application and you want to execute a TSO command.
>The ISPF designers could have said "tough; this is ISPF not TSO, if you want
>to execute a TSO command you have to get out of ISPF". But they didn't do
>that; instead, they created option 6 (as well as TSOCMD), which takes you to a
>panel in ISPF where TSO commands are fully supported. Three cheers once again
>for IBM, because once again they got it right!
>
And option 6 passes its argument asis, which is right.
>But what if you don't want to be bothered getting out of the ISPF panel you're
>in and going to option 6 to execute a TSO command? Well, IBM took it a step
>further and created an ISPF command called 'TSO'. This command lets you enter
>'TSO' followed by a TSO command on any ISPF panel (subject to certain
>limitations). This is yet another excellent design decision, so once again 3
>more cheers for IBM!
>
And here, I'd like someone to confirm or refute my conjecture that
'TSO' is detected and handled by the input processor, not by the code
specific to the panel. That is, does each panel supporting the 'TSO'
command need to contain logic such as:
SELECT
WHEN COMMAND=='TSO' then <issue TSO command string>;
...
or does it happen automatically?
>Unfortunately, all this flexibility has given some people the impression they
>can execute any TSO command on any ISPF panel, and expect it to work. But
>remember that most ISPF panels default to CAPS(ON), so if you need to execute
>a TSO command that requires mixed case characters then unfortunately you have
>to go to a panel that supports mixed case characters (e.g. option 6). I agree
>this is a minor inconvenience, but overall the ability to enter TSO commands
>within ISPF is quite remarkable.
>
If the 'TSO' command is processed by the input routine and not
by the individual panel code, it would be a minor change to
swap the order of detecting 'TSO' to before rather than after
conversion to upper case. That would make processing of the
'TSO' command not only correct, but consistent among all panels.
Otherwise, it would be only a slightly greater change to
move the 'TSO' recognition to the input processor, get it
to work consistently among all panels, and spare panel developers
the chore of checking for 'TSO'.
>Hmmm, maybe I should try entering a DOS command in Windows Notepad and see how
>well that works... ;-)
>
I see 'TSO' as an accommodation to the fundamental limition
of ISPF. In Windows, it's easy enough to open a command window
(or several) while editing a file (or several) with WordPad
without disrupting one's edit session(s) and Copy and Paste
among the WordPad and command windows. If ISPF had this
facility, there'd be little point in being able to issue a
TSO command from its command line.
-- gil
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