How to replace a string using exclude and change command

rulerofera · New User Joined: 03 Jun 2008 Posts: 30 Location: India

I am having a physical sequential file with record length of 133.

Now there are some lines in the file which has string xxxxxx from column 72 through 99.
Now I need to replace this 28 character string with all spaces.

My progress so far:
I first issued exclude command as
X ALL "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" 72
then I need to change this string 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' from excluded lines to all spaces how can I do that.

Terry Heinze · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:46 pm

Due to the limitation of the length of the CMD line in ISPF, I would do it as the following 2 ISPF commands:

Ronald Burr · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:47 pm

What's so hard about a simple change command?

Robert Sample · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:50 pm

Set boundaries to 72 99
C P'^' ' ' X ALL
Reset boundaries

where P'^' is the shift-6 character (not symbol) that represents any character. Since you've excluded the lines you want changed, you don't have to match the entire 28-byte string -- you did that when you did the exclude.

Terry Heinze · Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:55 pm

Thanks Robert. I forgot about the fact that the string appears in positions 72 through 99 only.

My method could be modified to restrict itself to those positions only.
Ronald,
Your command will replace the 28-char string by just one space. I don't think that was the intial requirement.

prino · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:19 am

rulerofera · New User Joined: 03 Jun 2008 Posts: 30 Location: India

Thanks to all for your responses.

Yes Terry, command Line limitation was one of the factor that I was not able to execute otherwise trivial Change command replacing some 28 chars with 28 spaces.

Robert,
The command C P'^' ' ' X ALL that you gave was not working so I did some searching and found that P'=' is used to denote any character in C command. So I executed the command as
C P'=' ' ' X ALL
and it worked. Thanks a lot for your suggestion.

Robert Sample · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:22 pm

I just checked -- the shift-6 character (caret or not symbol) in a change command picture changes non-blanks; the = sign changes all characters. The results should be the same for what you're doing.

Anyway, glad it worked!

Terry Heinze · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:16 pm

Robert, an Extended ASCII Chart can be found at www.cdrummond.qc.ca/cegep/informat/Professeurs/Alain/files/ascii.htm where you can key "non-keyboard" characters. Key 170 while holding down the Alt key to get ¬.

The 170 must be keyed using the keypad though, not the numbers on the top row.

Robert Sample · Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:20 pm

Which will work real well on my laptop here since it does not have a keypad!

I've got a docking station at work that does have the keypad, but sometimes I get to work from home and then it's me and the laptop keyboard only ...