What is Exact use of REXX?

sreekanth1984 · New User Joined: 23 Mar 2010 Posts: 22 Location: Bangalore

Hi All,

What is the exact use of REXX....?

I tried to search the Exact use of REXX....but I could not find. Everywhere I found....its an very esay to write...and its English like language....but didnt find the exact use of REXX....

Can we do Record level opertaions as we do in COBOL....Can we compare and contrast it to any high level langauge...?

Thanks
Srikanth

superk · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:50 pm

Tough question to answer. First of all, can I presume that you've read the sticky topic here?

TSO ? ISPF ? REXX ? Keeping them Straight

so you can be somewhat familiar with the terminology and environments.

As far as I'm concerned, REXX is another langauge and/or tool that's used for specfific reasons, much like any other. COBOL has its uses, PLI has its, Assembler has its, SAS and Easytrieve and the others have theirs as well. It's used almost exclusively in performing system automation. It's supported almost universally as the language of choice for interfacing with IBM and third-party products and tools. It's a powerful and useful tool used by many IT professionals who's functions and responsibilities don't warrant the use of other higher-level languages.

As far as a comparison, the closest I can think of, and I'm probably off-base here, is somewhere between a shell script and Perl.

REXX has all of the normal functions of other languages. File I-O, IF-THEN-ELSE logic, subroutines and procedures, mathematical and character operations, etc. However, its file-processing power is poor, so its not the right tool for any heavy-duty or large file processing duties.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:54 pm

if you can provide an 'exact use'
of COBOL
of ASSEMBLER
of DB2
of a hammer
i imagine i could be drawn into this idiotic, philosophical, theoretical discussion.

but until then I suggest you read about the capabilities of REXX
and then
like everyone else on the planet
create you own list of EXACT uses.

sreekanth1984 · New User Joined: 23 Mar 2010 Posts: 22 Location: Bangalore

In brief,

The exact use of COBOL is We can do file processing and can do record level operations on any DB2 table, and can process CICS screens...same thing with ASSEMBLER also.....

DB2 is a RDBMS with high performance, less redunndancy and a lot....

My question is why we need REXX, additional capabilities of REXX....?

What is meant by idiotic discussion...?

daveporcelan · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:16 pm

Rather than somebody trying to give you an all encompassing statement try this.

Read through the last six months of posts on this Rexx forum.

This will show what people are using REXX for.

It will not be somebodys opinion, but show actual usage.

That would be exact.

PeterHolland · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:17 pm

Read this :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REXX

Robert Sample · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:22 pm

Pedro · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:17 pm

Ed Goodman · Active Member Joined: 08 Jun 2011 Posts: 556 Location: USA

I really and truly think this is a troll, in the internet sense of the word.

Robert Sample · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:20 pm

Good point, Pedro!

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:34 pm

sreekanth1984,
i believe you are yet another victim of the language barrier.

as has been indicated,
there is really no exact use of most things.

languages / cobol, assembler, rexx, clist, ezytrieve

all have their uses as tools of the developer.

rexx, clist and ezytrieve can be executed as interpretive languages, thus there is no need for a compile,link,bind step.
as Robert said, rexx is for quick and dirty.
except for ezytrieve all the languages are supported by ibm. ezytrieve is a third party language.

picking a language for a use is sorta like choosing the car over a bicycle for a long trip, and the bicycle for around the corner and through the field.

trying to apply the term exact use when speaking of a programming language is not normally applied.

that you attempted to provide an answer to my question about exact use of COBOL ASM, etc... leads me to believe that
you were asking an honest question.
i apologize for sending this thread in the direction that it went.

careful of the online translators,
i often get into trouble when i use them when attempting to write german.

superk provided a far superior answer,
and i will attempt to adopt his attitude in the future.

____________________________________________
the only thing we can control and change,
is our attitude.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:37 pm

Bill Woodger brought to my attention
ezytrieve is not an interpreted language.

thx

Craq Giegerich · Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:50 pm

Pedro · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:55 am

One of rexx's strengths is that you can invoke host commands easily.

For example, you can easily issue the LISTCAT command. You can get similar results in assembler through the use of some macros, but it is non-trival.

Likewise, you can:
- issue IMS operator commands through rexx
- issue DB2 commands
- z/OS operator commands
- TCP/IP commands
- IDCAMS
- invoke batch utilities, such as IEBCOPY
- all of the above in the same rexx program if you desire.

I believe the skill required to do the same in other languages is prohibitive - you would not want to try.

rohanthengal · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:30 pm

In short as per my experience,

REXX is not an heavy application development language like COBOL,C,C++,Java,C# etc.

It is a parsing language used for TOOLs development majorly in Mainframes. This helps to reduce manual efforts of doing any task.
e.g. automation of FTP task, JCL commenter, COBOL commenter, Creating reports showing Lines of codes in every program and categorising them in Small/Large/Medium etc.

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:40 pm

Bill Woodger · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:56 pm

This topic started off going nowhere in particular, isn't it time to finish it off given the certain expectation that it is not even going to arrive there...?

rohanthengal · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:21 pm

thanks enrico, but i would like to modify the same --

COBOL/C/Java etc languages are widely used for Business Application developements whereas REXX supports & boosts these applications by their automation.

Escapa · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:42 pm

sreekanth1984 · New User Joined: 23 Mar 2010 Posts: 22 Location: Bangalore

Thank you all for the valuable inputs provided.
Thank you Dick for the explanation you have given...

madmartinsonxx · Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 7:40 pm

REXX gets my sunday paper for me.