Need help in REXX

Satheeshkumar · New User Joined: 20 Feb 2009 Posts: 51 Location: Chennai

My requirement is that i have to get number of records to be written in to the file from the user and

details of the record( contents) should be get from user by using panel.

this record contents has to be written into PSFILE..

Can anyone help me write code in REXX to accoplish this...

Debabrata Pruseth · Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:02 pm

One can simply create a PS File , open it and write records in to it .

Why go in a round about way of creating a REXX program , a ISPF panel to do this basic stuff.

Still if you want to do this way only this is my suggestion . Create a panel that will ask the user for the name of PSFile . In the REXX program create the PSFile dynamically , open the file and give it to the user . The user will then enter as much data as he wants and close the file and save it.

In the forum and in google you will find a lot of material to create a panel and how to handle PS Files in REXX.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:35 pm

Developing REXX utilities that use panels to capture data and generate files is cool, though it requires a little knowledge.
If you have the time to learn, test and debug for all the different types of situations, great. But this exercise could evolve into a nightmare. A file that only contains a few display fields is easy; a file with 20 or more fields, packed-decimal, comp, etc. means that you panel must capture not only the data, but the 'pic clause', relative location, length, and then you have to create these different type of fields (comp-3, comp) thru REXX.

This means multi-panels.... you are going to spend a lot of time dealing with the ins&outs of panel control.

IF all you are trying to accomplish is an integrated ISPF 3.2 option with an edit, you are wasting your time. IF the user is expected to enter comp-3/comp data properly in an edit mode, you are not providing anything productive.

Though not as pretty/slick as a Panel driven file generator, IBM does provide IEBDG (Test Data Generator) Program .

Developing an expertise with IEBDG could mean that you deliver something this year.

expat · Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:59 pm

Half the job of getting a decent response from the forum members is stating clearly and precisely what it is that you wish to achieve.

I have read your post and the subsequent responses, both of which give you information, but not enough to help you because nobody really knows what you want to do.

My initial thoughts were that maybe you wanted to extract certain records from some existing file into a user defined PS file. But hey, I could well be wrong here because I don't have the foggiest idea of what you really want to accomplish.

Maybe if you took some time to detail what it is that you want, then the responses would be far less vague and far more helpful.

Pedro · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:18 pm

Satheesh,

Read about panels in "ISPF Dialog Devloper's Guide and Reference" manual.

For writing to a file, read about EXECIO and about stem variables in the "TSO Rexx Reference" manual.

You probably also want to learn about the ALLOC and FREE commands. They are documented in "TSO Command Reference".