Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Seymour J Metz]

Whoosh! A syntax direct editor is a frequent component of an IDE.

What seems to you is, as usual, wrong. Meanwhile, you are hypocritically doing 
exactly what you accuse me of and not even trying to understand what I and 
others have written.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
David Crayford [dcrayf...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2021 2:25 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

On 31/01/2021 10:49 am, Seymour J Metz wrote:
> Did it ever occur to you that when you write things that people know to be 
> false, they're less likely to believe what you write about other matters?


Shrug! I could care less what you think. You're understanding of
mainframe technology seems to be chained to the past. Hence why you take
so many endless trips down memory lane.


>
> BTW, syntax directed editors have been around longer than three decades, 
> regardless of when you first discovered them.


I don't remember mentioning syntax directed editors? I was talking about
LSP and using a client/server architecture to decouple the editor from
language specific features like
context assist, hover over, auto-completion and advanced static code
analyzers. Any editor that is an LSP client can uses IBM's free COBOL,
PL/1, HLASM language servers. And that is pretty much
every popular editor including Vim (neovim). Zowe has mainframe specific
editors that use LSP. There are also many commercial products coming
online from mainframe vendors that
use LSP. It seems to me that you don't even bother trying to understand
what I'm talking about. You just hit reply and start typing lots of
pompous, ignorant drivel.

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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[David Crayford]

On 31/01/2021 10:49 am, Seymour J Metz wrote:

Did it ever occur to you that when you write things that people know to be 
false, they're less likely to believe what you write about other matters?



Shrug! I could care less what you think. You're understanding of 
mainframe technology seems to be chained to the past. Hence why you take 
so many endless trips down memory lane.





BTW, syntax directed editors have been around longer than three decades, 
regardless of when you first discovered them.



I don't remember mentioning syntax directed editors? I was talking about 
LSP and using a client/server architecture to decouple the editor from 
language specific features like
context assist, hover over, auto-completion and advanced static code 
analyzers. Any editor that is an LSP client can uses IBM's free COBOL, 
PL/1, HLASM language servers. And that is pretty much
every popular editor including Vim (neovim). Zowe has mainframe specific 
editors that use LSP. There are also many commercial products coming 
online from mainframe vendors that
use LSP. It seems to me that you don't even bother trying to understand 
what I'm talking about. You just hit reply and start typing lots of 
pompous, ignorant drivel.


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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Seymour J Metz]

"But his answer little meaning, little relevancy bore".   Your question has no 
connection to what I actually wrote. Further, were I to contribute to an editor 
project, I would not consult you on the choice of project, nor would I inform 
you that I had done so.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3



From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  on behalf of 
David Crayford 
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2021 1:33 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

On 30/01/2021 3:44 am, Seymour J Metz wrote:
> I would guess that there are more people here who have written a text editor 
> than there are who have used only one.

In that case why don't you contribute to the lspf project. You mentioned
it didn't support file tailoring so jump in and implement it. I'm sure
the maintainer will welcome a PR with open arms.

Or maybe, you just talk a good game ;)


>
> --
> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
>
> 
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
> Jeremy Nicoll [jn.ls.mfrm...@letterboxes.org]
> Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 2:06 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux
>
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2021, at 03:27, David Crayford wrote:
>
>> No offense taken. You may find it far fetched but it's true. I'm
>> cognizant to the fact that most folks on here only know ISPF
>> and have no experience of using an IDE or text editor
>> like vim or emacs.
> I think it's pretty likely that many (if not most) people here will have
> used a great many text editors, though maybe not recently.
>
> In my case, I wrote one when I was a student. It wasn't very good, but
> one written by a peer was so good that the whole student body, staff
> etc all stopped using the system-provided one (on DEC VAXes running,
> I suppose, VMS).
>
> Later, though while still a student, I wrote one in APL (for IBM) which
> vaguely resembled Xedit (though only had a handful of commands)
> but still made editing of APL functions a whole lot easier than with the
> default editor in APL.
>
> Later, I wrote a PF-key driven editor (that is users did not have to
> remember any commands; everything they did was selected by
> pressing various PF keys whose labels (and actions) were context
> sensitive.  That was designed for use by very naive users who did
> not have (allocated lecture-course) time to learn to use anything
> complex.
>
> In the 1980s, I wrote from scratch a structured editor which, I guess,
> would be a bit like a document editor that these days would read a
> DTD to determine the syntax etc of a language and allow a valid XML
> document that complied with that DTD to be edited.  I invented the
> definition language, wrote a parser and compiler for it, then wrote the
> editor to use the compiled skeletal framework.  And... it was all done in
> COBOL as that was the only licenced/supported language my employers
> would let me do it in.  It had to be able to handle documents whose
> size exceeded the addressable working storage size of the COBOL
> compiler we had (and certainly exceeded the spare space there after
> all the program's own working storage structures were defined), and of
> course it had to handle free format text and variable length strings.  I
> started off by implementing a sort of paging subsystem that dynamically
> paged parts of the document that was being edited in and out of work
> files, and designed that so that the values stored in those files - both user
> data & control tables for the document structure could be arbitrary sizes.
> The editor also had a (programmers-only) interactive debugger which
> could follow linked-lists of data, and force garbage collection of that
> managed storage etc).
>
> On RISC OS systems I've used the default editor (which is poor, somewhat
> like Notepad) and a programmers' editor named StrongED, which is not
> quite an IDE but is very powerful ... but dates back to when systems had
> only a few MB of RAM.
>
> On Windows PCs I've used around four other programmers' editors, but
> lack of scriptability, or a requirement to learn a script language that was
> only usable inside that editor and a command set that didn't directly
> relate to the commands users used (or actions only available from mouse
> operated menus and no command line), made using them a struggle
> compared with Kedit... even allowing for the fact that I started to use Kedit
> for real more than 20 years after I last used Xedit, with 18 or so years' use
> of ispf edit in the middle period to confuse me.
>
> --
> Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.
>
> --
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>
> 

Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[David Crayford]

On 30/01/2021 3:44 am, Seymour J Metz wrote:

I would guess that there are more people here who have written a text editor 
than there are who have used only one.


In that case why don't you contribute to the lspf project. You mentioned 
it didn't support file tailoring so jump in and implement it. I'm sure 
the maintainer will welcome a PR with open arms.


Or maybe, you just talk a good game ;)




--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Jeremy Nicoll [jn.ls.mfrm...@letterboxes.org]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 2:06 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

On Fri, 29 Jan 2021, at 03:27, David Crayford wrote:


No offense taken. You may find it far fetched but it's true. I'm
cognizant to the fact that most folks on here only know ISPF
and have no experience of using an IDE or text editor
like vim or emacs.

I think it's pretty likely that many (if not most) people here will have
used a great many text editors, though maybe not recently.

In my case, I wrote one when I was a student. It wasn't very good, but
one written by a peer was so good that the whole student body, staff
etc all stopped using the system-provided one (on DEC VAXes running,
I suppose, VMS).

Later, though while still a student, I wrote one in APL (for IBM) which
vaguely resembled Xedit (though only had a handful of commands)
but still made editing of APL functions a whole lot easier than with the
default editor in APL.

Later, I wrote a PF-key driven editor (that is users did not have to
remember any commands; everything they did was selected by
pressing various PF keys whose labels (and actions) were context
sensitive.  That was designed for use by very naive users who did
not have (allocated lecture-course) time to learn to use anything
complex.

In the 1980s, I wrote from scratch a structured editor which, I guess,
would be a bit like a document editor that these days would read a
DTD to determine the syntax etc of a language and allow a valid XML
document that complied with that DTD to be edited.  I invented the
definition language, wrote a parser and compiler for it, then wrote the
editor to use the compiled skeletal framework.  And... it was all done in
COBOL as that was the only licenced/supported language my employers
would let me do it in.  It had to be able to handle documents whose
size exceeded the addressable working storage size of the COBOL
compiler we had (and certainly exceeded the spare space there after
all the program's own working storage structures were defined), and of
course it had to handle free format text and variable length strings.  I
started off by implementing a sort of paging subsystem that dynamically
paged parts of the document that was being edited in and out of work
files, and designed that so that the values stored in those files - both user
data & control tables for the document structure could be arbitrary sizes.
The editor also had a (programmers-only) interactive debugger which
could follow linked-lists of data, and force garbage collection of that
managed storage etc).

On RISC OS systems I've used the default editor (which is poor, somewhat
like Notepad) and a programmers' editor named StrongED, which is not
quite an IDE but is very powerful ... but dates back to when systems had
only a few MB of RAM.

On Windows PCs I've used around four other programmers' editors, but
lack of scriptability, or a requirement to learn a script language that was
only usable inside that editor and a command set that didn't directly
relate to the commands users used (or actions only available from mouse
operated menus and no command line), made using them a struggle
compared with Kedit... even allowing for the fact that I started to use Kedit
for real more than 20 years after I last used Xedit, with 18 or so years' use
of ispf edit in the middle period to confuse me.

--
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Paul Gilmartin]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2021 03:31:46 +, Seymour J Metz  wrote:

>I knew about acoustic delay lines, but a mechanical delay line is mind 
>boggling! Thanks.
>
I might call it circularly polarized transverse acoustic.  The quanta are
still phonons.  I wonder what the propagation velocity is?

>
>From: Wayne Bickerdike 
>Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 5:42 PM
>
>True, I inherited one written in COBOL for a Sycor 445. The machine is
>described here:
>http://www.satyam.com.ar/comphist.htm

-- gil

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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Seymour J Metz]

I knew about acoustic delay lines, but a mechanical delay line is mind 
boggling! Thanks.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Wayne Bickerdike [wayn...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 5:42 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

Seymour Wrote:


*I would guess that there are more people here who have written a text
editor than there are who have used only one.*

True, I inherited one written in COBOL for a Sycor 445. The machine is
described here:
http://secure-web.cisco.com/163zjmUr1Oq4O7-rCUDmYSYn_f5yvRGmq2UPVII6TKbubL7DsOGRHsZ4cJAgWM9TwY3LIcalLOCdTZ_RBSmswmmMnEux4r4H2I5FIMHE9wXcuBtNO297_tiWM82sB9xqMOa7H221SxAD8bNlYHStyWXNFzEl6rjR-XC48V_tfLZnibO9pv7OPt_0j-Zv-ffUC5MgDNqnZLiFjKh_peW3lDiTUDRCutc8-3W5Wba43ZkGojY3zF6K8ClH-1-THWUOP7h02WH7go6JRMNhlzI51m5yWfr45P4Mwm7oz5Wq3spGrOCwgxCD515t4c1_za2De0_TV2OGcggj5K_S2z8EAod4bqQeBocsmvghcGwDJPBmxyvnIhdJIyJf9VMSsnnBaAinMZzp3ZAC6jOQvumdAqz-D-keKjc_e_DYZrjljF6drteGQDH4-goCRYKVg0DSA/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.satyam.com.ar%2Fcomphist.htm

I modified it to work as a data entry "simplifier". Full screen editors
were always a dream when I came away from MVS for a while.

In that interregnum, our editor of choice was Wordmaster which morphed into
Wordstar and it perhaps was the forerunner of those Control key combos a
lot of us utilise. A fair few famous authors still use and love Wordstar or
its descendents.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Glad someone invented ISPF edit
macros. Others have a different vi(ew!)


On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 6:45 AM Seymour J Metz  wrote:

> I would guess that there are more people here who have written a text
> editor than there are who have used only one.
>
>
> --
> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
>
> 
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf
> of Jeremy Nicoll [jn.ls.mfrm...@letterboxes.org]
> Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 2:06 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux
>
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2021, at 03:27, David Crayford wrote:
>
> > No offense taken. You may find it far fetched but it's true. I'm
> > cognizant to the fact that most folks on here only know ISPF
> > and have no experience of using an IDE or text editor
> > like vim or emacs.
>
> I think it's pretty likely that many (if not most) people here will have
> used a great many text editors, though maybe not recently.
>
> In my case, I wrote one when I was a student. It wasn't very good, but
> one written by a peer was so good that the whole student body, staff
> etc all stopped using the system-provided one (on DEC VAXes running,
> I suppose, VMS).
>
> Later, though while still a student, I wrote one in APL (for IBM) which
> vaguely resembled Xedit (though only had a handful of commands)
> but still made editing of APL functions a whole lot easier than with the
> default editor in APL.
>
> Later, I wrote a PF-key driven editor (that is users did not have to
> remember any commands; everything they did was selected by
> pressing various PF keys whose labels (and actions) were context
> sensitive.  That was designed for use by very naive users who did
> not have (allocated lecture-course) time to learn to use anything
> complex.
>
> In the 1980s, I wrote from scratch a structured editor which, I guess,
> would be a bit like a document editor that these days would read a
> DTD to determine the syntax etc of a language and allow a valid XML
> document that complied with that DTD to be edited.  I invented the
> definition language, wrote a parser and compiler for it, then wrote the
> editor to use the compiled skeletal framework.  And... it was all done in
> COBOL as that was the only licenced/supported language my employers
> would let me do it in.  It had to be able to handle documents whose
> size exceeded the addressable working storage size of the COBOL
> compiler we had (and certainly exceeded the spare space there after
> all the program's own working storage structures were defined), and of
> course it had to handle free format text and variable length strings.  I
> started off by implementing a sort of paging subsystem that dynamically
> paged parts of the document that was being edited in and out of work
> files, and designed that so that the values stored in those files - both
> user
> data & control tables for the document structure could be arbitrary sizes.
> The editor also had a (programmers-only) interactive debugger which
> could follow linked-lists of data, and force garbage collection of that
> managed storage etc).
>
> On RISC OS systems I've used the default editor (which is poor, somewhat
> like Notepad) and a programmers' editor named StrongED, which is not
> quite an IDE but is very powerful ... but dates back to when systems had
> only a few MB of RAM.
>
> On 

Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Seymour J Metz]

> 4. Source code EBCDIC-ASCII translation. Example: I hate REXX
> translation. REXX use || characters while in CP852 it should be !!. 

Rubbish. It is not the fault of CP852, C or REXX. CP852 has | and ! at the same 
code points as CP437. The issue is the EBCDIC code page and translation that 
you're using.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Radoslaw Skorupka [r.skoru...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 6:21 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other 
platforms?

I did it. There is no simple solution, not "one size fit all".
Few remarks:
1. EBCDIC-ASCII conversion. It is crucial for text file, however
sometimes record contain binary fields which should not be translated or
the translation is quite different.
2. Programs. There is no big reason to migrate PDS libraries (program
objects or load modules).
3. Source code. Why? It's not so obvoius.
4. Source code EBCDIC-ASCII translation. Example: I hate REXX
translation. REXX use || characters while in CP852 it should be !!.
Simple translation corrupts REXX code. C code is corrupted as well.
5. PDS/PDSE data. It is simple to download XMI files or just convert
PDS(E) to directory of members. Why?
6. "Archival purposes" can be EASILY fulfilled with ADRDSSU DUMP "all
files" and then XMIT and download. It is good archive, but it is
readable under z/OS. Bad? This is the only 100% exact copy. And let's
imagine, you can use two (or more) ways - one for "exact, but unreadable
copy", other for more readable copies, but not necessarily exact.

--
Radoslaw Skorupka
(currently unemployed)
Lodz, Poland



W dniu 28.01.2021 o 23:31, Gibney, Dave pisze:
>Isn't that a long winder subject?
> In preparation for shutting down my z/OS 2.3 system, sometime this year, 
> I am looking at options for unloading/storing both my z/OS files as well as 
> my application data and infrastructure files.
> I thought of experimenting with GIMZIP. Which, for a PDS/E uses IEBCOPY  
> to create a sequential  unload and then uses pax to create a 
> S.dsname.pax.Z file containing the unload and a GIMFAF.XML descriptive 
> file.
> I can download the .pax.Z file, and using 7zip decompress it.
> I looked on CBTTAPE.org and found the Xmit tools, and some terse/unterse 
> options. And tools for .aws files.
>I didn't find anything to process ot look at IEBCOPY unloaded files. Does 
> such a tool exist out there.
>
>I can of course TRANSMIT (and even AMATERSE it) before GIMZIP, or run pax 
> outside GIMZIP. But, I'd kind of like the GIMFAF.XML file...
>
> Dave Gibney
> Information Technology Services
> Washington State University
>
>
> --
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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Seymour J Metz]

Some tools to consider including in the mix, with binary FTP:

   AMS EXPORT
   IEBCOPY unload
   tar
   zip


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Gibney, Dave [gib...@wsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 8:53 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other 
platforms?

Thank you to all who have responded, I appreciate the several suggestions so 
far, I may try several of them. I may get shifted into other efforts.
 Right now, this is an  exploratory, researching, POC,  project and with 
undefined or incomplete and amorphous goals..
Even the ultimate target users/audience isn't clear, and they may not, in the 
end, actually ever need to look. But, it is very unlikely that, as least for 
any preliminary looking, they are unlikely to have access to a z/OS system (or 
even a Hercules/MVS 3.8)
  because if the need arises very far into the future , it probably won't be 
me. I'll have 40 years in  here  come August, and may or may not be available 
to them.

  I want something )or several different "things" that will, at least 
hypothetically let there be a chance for a  historical, investigatory, or, god 
forbid, a forensic effort to get started.
   I also don't want it to be significantly manual. I have SMP/E, DCOLLECT, 
ADRDSSU, TRANSMIT, FTP, (Could install CCKDDUMP), DFSORT, Rexx and other tools 
(Natural) available. And aside from PS, PDS, VSAM, there is also Adabas, 
Control-D and probably Endevor data to consider.


> 6. "Archival purposes" can be EASILY fulfilled with ADRDSSU DUMP "all
> files" and then XMIT and download. It is good archive, but it is
> readable under z/OS. Bad? This is the only 100% exact copy. And let's
> imagine, you can use two (or more) ways - one for "exact, but unreadable
> copy", other for more readable copies, but not necessarily exact.
>
> > In preparation for shutting down my z/OS 2.3 system, sometime this
> year, I am looking at options for unloading/storing both my z/OS files as well
> as my application data and infrastructure files.


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Re: Rexx stem variable question

[Seymour J Metz]

https://ia801609.us.archive.org/14/items/REXXLanguage2ndEdition/REXX%20Language%20-%202nd%20Edition.pdf

"The name begins with a stem (that part of the symbol up to and including the 
first period)."


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Tom 
Conley [pinnc...@rochester.rr.com]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 10:33 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Rexx stem variable question

On 1/29/2021 12:05 PM, Charles Mills wrote:
>> Try value(isstepinit.userid.) = 0
>
> Thanks @Tom. I will keep that in mind. I already got this program working 
> using somewhat different logic that avoided dependency on the nonexistent 
> "Rexx feature."
>
> Charles
>

Charles,

First, let me apologize for posting a quick answer between production
problems.  As Shmuel and Gil have pointed out, I was incorrect in saying
that the tail was a literal.  I feel shame.

I ran a number of tests to try to determine what was going on here.  I
also consulted every Rexx reference I could find.  None of them showed
initializing a stem array beyond the initial stem.  While none of the
references come out and say it,
a.b. = 0
doesn't accomplish making
a.b.c = 0,
only
a. = 0
will do that.  This would be a good question for Mike Cowlishaw.

Regards,
Tom Conley

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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Seymour J Metz]

There you go again, treating your fantasies about what others know and do as 
facts. 

Did it ever occur to you that when you write things that people know to be 
false, they're less likely to believe what you write about other matters?

BTW, syntax directed editors have been around longer than three decades, 
regardless of when you first discovered them.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
David Crayford [dcrayf...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2021 12:34 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

On 30/01/2021 6:42 am, Wayne Bickerdike wrote:
> Necessity is the mother of invention. Glad someone invented ISPF edit
> macros. Others have a different vi(ew!)

It's going to take a lot more than a few ISPF edit macros to implement
what's available in the new generation of mainframe IDEs Wayne! A couple
of years back we attended the Z roadshow at IBM, Perth.
They demoed IBM Wazi Developer which was impressive. It's a web based
IDE that spins up docker containers in the cloud for workspaces. A few
years back IBM acquired EZSource which
is a suite of tools for deep code analysis of COBOL/PL1 legacy code. It
builds a dependency graph of all the assets in an application. It can
find dead code, logic errors. Modern editors like VS Code are implemented
using language servers and the Language Server Protocol (LSP) [2] to run
RPC calls on the back-end for code completion, context assist, linting
etc. All of this fits into a devops pipeline. There were loads of young
devs
from Perths big bank that day who were using IBM developer for Z and
they will jump right on Wazi. BW are transitioning to Git so we will
lose a Proteus SCM customer and gain a Git customer.

Tooling like this is a necessity as the developers with deep knowledge
of the system retire or drop off, which is happening now.  Intelligent
tooling and modern development practices are a must. The ISPF editor is
not intelligent.
I can't even write a customer syntax highlighter for shell scripts let
alone Python, both of which are first class mainframe languages. Of
course, most of the old timers that have used ISPF for 30+ years will
stick to what they know and good luck to them.

Good news that you can get a VS Code based z/OS mainframe editor that
supports COBOL, PL1 and HLASM for free [3]. If you're running Zowe it
can integrate with the remote system explorer. I was involved in code
reviews for some of the RSE work and
it's a very neat implementation. All of the code is open source on
Github. It's hard to justify stumping up hundreds of $$ for Slickedit or
Ultraedit when you can get this for free!

[1] https://www.ibm.com/products/wazi-developer
[2] 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1fzflFlaV1eL1bSYU1FPuAdSRNE0YVIKVjRN8nWdGxtFzRgJUIGifAl-EMouAFu459BUZ2A1te_e576ljRBRIhKhyya_gRxfChHYuQ2Yew4ZM-DJ9ITcymGnbluWZ8-GLqjeQ_tWGasIZb3ks9XY_auzuaQLHMz57A-t-qqC0v1-Z05qDt9UwPrnY5MxaT-PzKR2aHYPGbjyM6C9f4xYxTcN9JnkMxNYgPoDQ0AnwDlMpzQeA8EfIKDmy2eFo_VVwlB-jX8hKuEQdbRR-4FUr2V5KmvQYeUWWCw12vbElXH6GMfew5Mj3b89lLS7XXmhPkH7Q9bF9qlyU5OijJv6T8BzJAaFD6lGrgLk66lqcqYg6oNrvUWkzbxUJNQM3tgL68doMPU8bgcDcb9ZGYTHIKxmM2olCJjJHa9ct4z5xxPhiPfQvSgIJIJUFVbwURlz5Jz2xGnxv0NoTfJMJ5X85cQ/https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLanguage_Server_Protocol
[3] 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Crt2Y9ns4pJIOXARhnn8pUVKhyxSlGloaqKrXmhO5_TC6wnyLNWdyQwbCT3JCOsk0hD3HQxK1oa3luh7fFfssiUkqnXzS7a-zTwOSTz5Vkooo35wSPgv7h7Jwod8OiFXy5QvyvPF16MtwjoeDhWo-g9Tm58E4-SGnnJIfuWB8PNkYfnLz4l0lE8yUvaqgvEjfewoT7BNgq0g3i5TQnLZKn8P0Y8KL1jBRBuEhO24w_o7kRDuMv3dV_ULEA0h8POf9c-KmUOYLdT9M-ncAhtc2LJIlF8ILTWlXWM02bCeHz7vAygev37exvSaCGu9eGXGo_uYeEjgW2JMmNFGK8SzEnOWUH3LeEGlWljrY5WSKWJeuCgYvEAOHlGChZsHyr1x1endomuGTtByOaof0iAY3UA5-WH_BgT2Ev8g2VAb6mWU4alBLZny6Buj4-DjGZLlUV3raqWfOpTQYNHOuUAUyQ/https%3A%2F%2Fibm.github.io%2Fzopeneditor-about%2F

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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Seymour J Metz]

I see that it also handles AWS :-)


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3


From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Robert Prins [rob...@prino.org]
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2021 2:29 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other 
platforms?

On 2021-01-29 16:44, Seymour J Metz wrote:
> XMIT is not supported on all platforms. Other formats, e.g., tar, zip, are
> nigh near universal.

The XMIT format is with a high degree of certainty supported on every platform
that has Java:

,
 and I'm sure the C version on the CBTTape
site (File # 776) will compile on any system, although that program can only
handle PDS'es.

> FTP of a PDS won't preserve all of the data. Does Info-Zip include all of
> the  directory information? Also, FTP raises the issues of binary data and 
> code pages.

Not just FTP. IND$FILE and the WSA have the same problems.

Robert
--
Robert AH Prins
robert(a)prino(d)org
The hitchhiking grandfather - 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1pv_BExGlhLZXiOFWSYqHo-06BzGoPv4zniVm2gqSILrmijDWZhfdZ0i7vHFu0LI5lnLwgXCFhDvYX2Gauxc1sx1d6wUtAyIJW1VcmnISBTA1dyWOhQ16iVolc4IgGRGFybk7IcSNntqYqvlrL0kIdkb1TFXPryjn9-RF8NdLkPTWZzVjbKgdrnpq4bw2PpDenAfRy5SKVJbVD_lU0LkPKEMgmmjTAZgYA_2RIDonvUb5rMxZfNhru6KUlANsT8WruR4_4DpBDiWZFCFj_uXqLBrtfJKp7IvzavdAuCsXm1HLACX8tG6vKfXYb0qNLNXxUNxzF3HgcXRQS5fqEDngat3jypz2bTkVR-Uvi2g02tIa5mw8PmMIDQ1dJNLzxtWj50fPsVb5Sq295XBKS2yfg4vR5GA8zsKHgfP3UEO-zojzkz9Zj8oN01gMRR2xEdsQcN8-e1EPUNFcF_mnyhmOcg/https%3A%2F%2Fprino.neocities.org%2Findez.html
Some REXX code for use on z/OS - 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1dmwoUmiKVwhkMfwrWpgXiP2wM3i-OC-n7vKuYrPHuwO_2gblPNBJUSMXDYhckHyxdzIK2gQkpnG2r-l2FtN7bHwKcWUbjzn3DgsRhEPEGtiP5erj2vlFT7ohGKIQQY5ciuFFEXv0GnocY2F5aLTqKTBLjT-9x8y_c6BCvzAdtaPRKfMnK_Q8EuATrJ_8G2SR0kmyOlcZbAqs5g7h20UkuBWwhb56LdVq8TD_itAHxwci8d4H9o5kX0lV12-vew146DTUvx21-0k0maNUNzdIi1yQRZkDY7EOSkt0Ep2-nAtD_OwvnBzZQYaPsb8Wvs0KB3QOwUQVeH6Z1aYp_9BfDLHC5nKbMRiHPf6Ol5olYz29rOeXpu-DXcQ0vrosgm4K-7tWyluuI7_icTdEpoqmLc_d2skAy2KzXbVovTiH5dRo6ky1vdGMELLnhHB1iUB3U_L69bdMUaR2lAhceIv7wA/https%3A%2F%2Fprino.neocities.org%2FzOS%2FzOS-Tools.html

> 
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
> Brian Westerman [brian_wester...@syzygyinc.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 3:36 AM
> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other 
> platforms?
>
> I think I would use transmit format for transporting things between systems, 
> it's easily transportable and common no matter where you go and is even 
> usable on a desktop PC.
>
> The other thing you can do (which I personally do) is simply FTP the PDS's 
> and sequential files directly to your PC (on a USB drive) in ASCII format.  I 
> do this weekly, rotating the encrypted USB drive that I have on my keychain 
> so that if it's broken or lost (that's why I encrypt), I can just get the 
> previous one.  My USB drives are pre-encrypted with Bitlocker so I really 
> don't have to do much (ever).  Previously I used to use those little USB 
> drives with the combination lock built in to them, but they are very 
> unreliable (and slow).  So now, when fast USB drives go on sale at Amazon, I 
> always buy several.  I like the sandisk 256GB ones because a) they are fast, 
> and more importantly b) they have a lifetime warranty.
>
> I have a batch file that I run to do this.  I plug in my USB drive and start 
> the batch file and go get a diet coke.
>
> I'm thinking about moving the process to one of the ruggedized external NVMe 
> drives.  I'm currently testing the new Sabrent 2TB one and it's VERY fast 
> (1Gb+/sec) and is small enough to easily fit in a pocket.  Plus being 
> ruggedized it's waterproof and drop-proof (so far).  The sandisk drives 
> typically load at around 140MB/s, but the Sabrent drive is almost 10 times 
> faster.
>
> The reason I want 2TB is that I would like to keep a whole Disaster recovery 
> system on that drive (DF/DSS unloaded virtual tapes).  At the faster speed, 
> it's actually not a bad process, I just need to work out the kinks a little 
> bit more so that I can automate it.

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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Radoslaw Skorupka]

W dniu 30.01.2021 o 20:29, Robert Prins pisze:

On 2021-01-29 16:44, Seymour J Metz wrote:
XMIT is not supported on all platforms. Other formats, e.g., tar, 
zip, are

nigh near universal.


The XMIT format is with a high degree of certainty supported on every 
platform that has Java:


, and I'm sure the C version on the 
CBTTape site (File # 776) will compile on any system, although that 
program can only handle PDS'es.


FTP of a PDS won't preserve all of the data. Does Info-Zip include 
all of
the  directory information? Also, FTP raises the issues of binary 
data and code pages.


Not just FTP. IND$FILE and the WSA have the same problems.


XMIT files are somehow supported on PC side for decades. There are 
several programs for that, most of them are free and unfortunately most 
of them are abandonware.

However they exist.
What does it mean?
1. You can read members from XMIT'ted PDS(E).
2. Of course members can be saved files in directory/folder - PDS is 
kind of folder. However in this case EBCDIC-ASCII conversion issues do 
apply.
3. In few cases a content of PDS directory is interesting. In that case 
XMIT tools are not helpful. However let's be honest: what is the value 
of accessing PDS directory details on PC side? Usually it is interesting 
for load modules or program objects. Rather not interesting on PC side.
4. Philosophical question: do we care about content or just 10% 
exact bit to bit copy? Do you want to know members content or you also 
care about PDS bitmap before it is compressed (in terms of PDS compress)?



Advertisement: A set of XMIT tools can be found on 
http://cbttape.org/xmitview.htm

My choice is XMI Explorer. The second one is Xmit-Manager.
In my opinion java-based tools are doubtful choice because of changes in 
java status.


--
Radoslaw Skorupka
(looking for new job)
Lodz, Poland

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Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux

[Alan Young]

I use JOE as an editor for linux command line. 
https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io . On windows or wine, I use Notepad++. 
https://notepad-plus-plus.org

mc.ext can be configured to launch custom programs (or editors) for file 
extensions.

Exiting and keeping the directory location...Do you have an alias set for mc? 
Depending on the distro and shell, it should be something like 
alias mc='. /usr/share/mc/bin/mc-wrapper.sh'
To use that wrapper, use F10 to exit mc. Don’t enter “exit” on its prompt.

Alan

-Original Message-
>From: "Farley, Peter x23353" <031df298a9da-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu>
>Sent: Jan 28, 2021 9:58 AM
>To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux
>
>Depends heavily on the editor software.  One editor I remember trying (I don't 
>remember which one now) used Ctrl-left-click to start and end a block copy.  
>Quite easy to use, one hand for the mouse and one for the Ctrl key, then 
>Ctrl-C or -X then Ctrl-V to copy/cut and paste.
>
>Sometimes combinations of mouse and keyboard are more usable than either one 
>alone.
>
>OTOH, my day-to-day PC editor under Windows (EditPlus) uses Alt-C to start a 
>block copy, then Ctrl-C or Ctrl-X to copy or cut and Ctrl-V to paste the 
>block.  I hardly have to think about it -- it Just Works.
>
>I've been tempted once or twice to pay for UltraEdit, but have not done so 
>yet.  It looks pretty good, and UltraEdit is available for Windows, Mac and 
>Linux, but it isn't cheap (though also not extraordinarily expensive for what 
>you get).
>
>There is also a free version of the MS Visual Code editor which I also haven't 
>tried yet.
>
>On Linux I often use the Midnight Commander view/edit programs (mcview/mcedit) 
>for quick browses and edits, but not for serious coding.  "vi" and it's 
>descendants are not intuitive to me, nor is emacs.  Nano is OK, but again not 
>my cup of tea for serious writing (code or text).
>
>Midnight Commander is awesome for file tree navigation from a console session 
>in both Windows and Linux.  Highly recommended.  I just wish I could figure 
>out how to tell it to STAY in the directory that I navigated to when I exit, 
>rather than going back to the directory where I started.
>
>Peter
>
>-Original Message-
>From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of 
>Seymour J Metz
>Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2021 11:29 AM
>To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux
>
>You have to carve the bird at the joints. How about a comparison of block copy 
>using keyboard versus mouse?
>
>--
>
>From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  on behalf of 
>Pew, Curtis G 
>Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2021 11:23 AM
>To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>Subject: Re: ISPF for mainframe Linux
>
>On Jan 28, 2021, at 10:04 AM, Joel C. Ewing  wrote:
>>
>> I would be willing to bet the the stopwatch studies cited were based 
>> on a highly restricted cases.
>
>The context was comparing command-key sequences to clicking buttons or 
>selecting menu items. Remembering the command-key sequence takes as long as 
>moving the mouse, but the brain doesn't perceive the time passing while 
>remembering, while it does perceive the time passing while manipulating the 
>mouse.
>
>
>--
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Robert Prins]

On 2021-01-29 16:44, Seymour J Metz wrote:

XMIT is not supported on all platforms. Other formats, e.g., tar, zip, are
nigh near universal.


The XMIT format is with a high degree of certainty supported on every platform 
that has Java:


, and I'm sure the C version on the CBTTape 
site (File # 776) will compile on any system, although that program can only 
handle PDS'es.



FTP of a PDS won't preserve all of the data. Does Info-Zip include all of
the  directory information? Also, FTP raises the issues of binary data and code 
pages.


Not just FTP. IND$FILE and the WSA have the same problems.

Robert
--
Robert AH Prins
robert(a)prino(d)org
The hitchhiking grandfather - https://prino.neocities.org/indez.html
Some REXX code for use on z/OS - https://prino.neocities.org/zOS/zOS-Tools.html



From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of 
Brian Westerman [brian_wester...@syzygyinc.com]
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 3:36 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other 
platforms?

I think I would use transmit format for transporting things between systems, 
it's easily transportable and common no matter where you go and is even usable 
on a desktop PC.

The other thing you can do (which I personally do) is simply FTP the PDS's and 
sequential files directly to your PC (on a USB drive) in ASCII format.  I do 
this weekly, rotating the encrypted USB drive that I have on my keychain so 
that if it's broken or lost (that's why I encrypt), I can just get the previous 
one.  My USB drives are pre-encrypted with Bitlocker so I really don't have to 
do much (ever).  Previously I used to use those little USB drives with the 
combination lock built in to them, but they are very unreliable (and slow).  So 
now, when fast USB drives go on sale at Amazon, I always buy several.  I like 
the sandisk 256GB ones because a) they are fast, and more importantly b) they 
have a lifetime warranty.

I have a batch file that I run to do this.  I plug in my USB drive and start 
the batch file and go get a diet coke.

I'm thinking about moving the process to one of the ruggedized external NVMe 
drives.  I'm currently testing the new Sabrent 2TB one and it's VERY fast 
(1Gb+/sec) and is small enough to easily fit in a pocket.  Plus being 
ruggedized it's waterproof and drop-proof (so far).  The sandisk drives 
typically load at around 140MB/s, but the Sabrent drive is almost 10 times 
faster.

The reason I want 2TB is that I would like to keep a whole Disaster recovery 
system on that drive (DF/DSS unloaded virtual tapes).  At the faster speed, 
it's actually not a bad process, I just need to work out the kinks a little bit 
more so that I can automate it.


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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Bernd Oppolzer]

Am 30.01.2021 um 00:39 schrieb Tony Harminc:

On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 18:21, Radoslaw Skorupka  wrote:


Few remarks:

...

4. Source code EBCDIC-ASCII translation. Example: I hate REXX
translation. REXX use || characters while in CP852 it should be !!.
Simple translation corrupts REXX code. C code is corrupted as well.

The | character is at the same code point X'7C' in CP852 (ISO Latin-2)
as it is in CP819 (ISO Latin-1) and most other European language CPs.
The ! character is at X'21' in CP852 and most others. So your problem
is with neither REXX nor with CP852 - it's presumably with some bad
translation table in your FTP or TN3270 or...



The problem is not at the client side (ASCII codepages);
the problem is that the EBCDIC codepages in Europe have the
exclamation point (!) at the place, where the American EBCDIC has |,
and so, if you transfer from an European EBCDIC codepage (273, for 
example),
which is standard here in Europe, you will get exclamation points 
instead of |

on the PC.

Same problem, if you transfer C programs written on the PC to mainframes;
you have to make sure, that the mainframe C compiler uses the European
EBCDIC codepage, which was not possible in the early days of C on the 
mainframe,
so we had to translate the source code to trigraphs after transferring 
it to

the mainframe.

Kind regards

Bernd




Tony H.

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Re: Inspecting and extracting from /OS transportable files on other platforms?

[Radoslaw Skorupka]

W dniu 30.01.2021 o 00:39, Tony Harminc pisze:

On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 18:21, Radoslaw Skorupka  wrote:


Few remarks:

...

4. Source code EBCDIC-ASCII translation. Example: I hate REXX
translation. REXX use || characters while in CP852 it should be !!.
Simple translation corrupts REXX code. C code is corrupted as well.

The | character is at the same code point X'7C' in CP852 (ISO Latin-2)
as it is in CP819 (ISO Latin-1) and most other European language CPs.
The ! character is at X'21' in CP852 and most others. So your problem
is with neither REXX nor with CP852 - it's presumably with some bad
translation table in your FTP or TN3270 or...


Tony,
I live with this issue for more than 20 years. First time I met it in 
1999 when I tried to run ...Star Wars move on ISPF.
Of course I know how to manage it, but default codepage translation 
tables do not. It doesn't matter you use ftp, IND$FILE or just 
copy-paste from Notepad to 3270 emulator (various types/vendors).
Of course the table can be modified, but it will fix REXX sourcecode 
problem and will be bad for other text files.
BTW: I think it is not simply my problem or problem of Eastern Europe 
(actually I live in Central Europe). It is also described on Mark Zelden 
website. And Mark provided good advice there: use XMIT format whenever 
possible. I follow it. Of course it is not applicable for "copy-pasted" 
small portions of code from some redbook or other publication.


BTW: I vaguely remember when I fixed the issue of square brackets and 
code page not displaying it correctly - AFAIR it took them one and half 
day before I helped them. It was some backup product, nevermind.


Regarding to the topic - Charles was good on this point - small errors 
do not prevent to review the code. And exact (but hard to read) copy can 
be done as well.


--
Radoslaw Skorupka
(looking for new job)
Lodz, Poland

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Re: Starting a started task from a started task

[Brian Westerman]

This is not meant to market the product, just to tell you what it does 
pertaining to this question.  

Actually one of the functions (of hundreds of them) of our SyzCMD/z product is 
to do this type of thing.  

The started task (any started task) can execute a SyzCMD/z script that can 
start any number of tasks and keeps track of their execution.

So, you could be in STC-A, start STC-B and STC-C, wait for STC-B to end and 
instantaneously start STC-D.  Each of those other started tasks can start (or 
stop) any number of other tasks and wait for them to end (or just get to a 
specific step, or time of day or any of hundreds of other potential 
possibilities), and then do "something" about it, (start a task, stop some 
other task, pretty much anything that a "real" operator could do, with the 
added advantage that you can interrogate all of the other tasks in the system 
at any time for (almost) any of their attributes.

Brian

The SyzCMD/z product is at www.SyzygyInc.com/SyzCMDz.htm

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