Share your best REXX tool concepts

Gopalakrishnan V · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:23 pm

Hi all,

You might be created a REXX tool which is really using in your project and minimizing the manual effort also increasing the productivity..

Can you please share the concepts of those tools and how it is using?

Thanks in advance

Pandora-Box · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:27 pm

If you could tell what is needed we might help

No one would be happy to share their "own works" for free ;) Atleast I wont

Also would suggest to talk to peers to identify what is actually needed and what might be useful for project and for you ;)

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 7:30 pm

superk · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:08 pm

When we go to create a new job, it can be difficult to determine what the next available jobname will be. So I created a simple little REXX exec and ISPF dialog task that prompts the user for the type of job required, loops through a table of potential jobnames, checks the Test/UAT and Production libraries for an existing name and, if not found in either, creates a new job with a basic template and opens it in ISPF EDIT.

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:20 pm

I don't think the question is very well thought out. If someone posts REXX code to do something with Changeman (or ZEKE or CA-7 or ....) and your site does not have that particular software -- what good does the REXX code do you? Even if your site has the software, Endevor for example, is customized for each site so REXX code to interact with Endevor might require more changes to work at your site instead of where it came from, than it would require to rewrite the code from scratch.

And then there is copyright law and intellectual property considerations to take into account.

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:34 pm

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:38 pm

Hello,

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:09 pm

Pandora-Box · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:34 pm

It would be better if Ts gives proper justification to his peers or who asked to think about tools or value adds which might closely related

May be a hint like write rexx programs to write cobol programs

vasanthz · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:41 pm

You can find some here

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:49 pm

don.leahy · Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:05 pm

Ask me to do a boring, repetitive task once, and I will do it the hard way. Ask me to do it again, and I will try to find a way to automate it.

One recent task I was asked to do consisted of submitting over 2,000 utility jobs. The job submission was already automated, but verifying the return codes required me to manually scroll through SDSF looking for unusual return codes.

The next time I had to do the task, I wrote a Rexx program to examine the job output and copy the problematic jobs to a PDS for later investigation. Only took 36 lines of code.

Pedro · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:36 am

I wrote a rexx program that invokes the ISRSUPC utility to search for text. You can invoke it as a line command from ISPF option 3.4. It displays the the results and then you can 'zoom' in on any line - it will open the right member and go to the selected line.

ezio vin · New User Joined: 16 Aug 2012 Posts: 44 Location: india

i created some rexx routines. its not much complex but very usefull and we use it in our daily routine of course it will considerably reduce your effort and time you spend

few of them are listed below i hope this will help

REXX Tool to delete all PDS created in a job, view PDS, copy from tape to disk, create test job, collect file details for specific user id and delete it, to restore migrated datasets.

expat · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 11:26 am

Pandora-Box · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 11:35 am

Expat,

I said that as it might be infringement to intellectual property.

Also I wanted the TS to know what is the best fit

If there was some arrogance in my post "Apologies"

prino · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:02 pm

Many moons ago I found this Generate REXX-Code as HTML and found that it was buggy, and so I decided to try to write an improved version. When that was working OK, I decided that it would be fun to write similar execs for other (legacy) languages and the results can be found in File # 769 R. Prins' edit macros to convert code/text into HTML on the CBTTape.org site.

Do the routines serve a purpose?

Probably a bit. I know of at least one person who uses them to put his execs on his website in an ISPF like format and they might also be useful if you need to do a presentation without having access to z/OS.

Other than that? They were fun to write, gave me some insight into parsing languages and even allowed me to actually improve on IBM's handling of JCL - EHIJCL correctly parses all JCL, including SYSIN embedded JCL, something the ISPF editor cannot handle correctly! EHISUPC is still a work in progress, although is can now handle most of the LINE compare output.

And as they were built on the work of others, I decided that sharing(*) them via the CBT Tape site was the best thing to do, and I actually went a bit further and made them available under the provisions of the GPL V3, ensuring that the code would always be free!

(*)"The intrinsic value of software is zero" (WL van de Poel, one of my old profs at the Technical University of Delft)

kushal Bothra · New User Joined: 16 Feb 2011 Posts: 38 Location: Gurgoan

Pedro · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 11:54 pm

Marso · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:29 pm

Pandora-Box · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:46 pm

Yes we generally do that when there is some dull period

Yea there are lot more we can do using REXX

1.Creating Rexx to create templates of programs
2.Create Rexx to create templates of jobs
3.Create Rexx to create DB2 utility jobs ( 100% can be created ) if a standard nomenclature is followed
4.Create Rexx to check unused variables
5.Create Rexx to check on program standards
6.Create REXX using ISPF to create miniature version of DB2 ADMIN /PLATINUM / BMC TOOL
7.Create a Rexx macro to generate displays after para/section names with para/section names on execution it could be use to identify the program flow
etc

Edit : Again as I stated already you need to find out what is the best needed for your shop

vasanthz · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:09 pm

Make REXX call CA7's built-in JCLCHECK to check for JCL errors. It is basically same as the JCLCHECK product.
So you don't have to buy JCLCHECK product separately = profit$$