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Chapter 18. REXX/CICS Text Editor
REXX/CICS provides a general purpose CICS-based text editor, patterned after VM/CMS XEDIT.
The editor is provided so that execs and data can be created, updated, and viewed from within the CICS
environment.
The REXX/CICS editor includes several prefix commands (for example: C, CC, M, MM, B, A, F, P) in
common with the XEDIT editor. To use the editor, enter EDIT.
While in an editor session, commands entered on the command line can be chained by placing a “;”
between each command. Support is also provided for macros written in REXX. This lets you customize
editor settings with a profile exec, add new commands to the editor, or use the editor facilities as part of
an application.
Note: The REXX/CICS Text Editor does not support binary files.
Invocation
You can start a REXX/CICS edit session from a CICS terminal (clear screen), a REXX/CICS session,
another edit session, or a REXX exec. You can enter the editor by executing the CICS EDIT transaction
identifier (or your site-defined transaction identifier for the REXX/CICS editor). From a clear REXX/CICS
screen enter EDIT followed by a REXX File System (RFS) file identifier and an edit session is issued for
this file.
Note: If you specify REXX as a CICS transaction identifier with no exec name, the IBM supplied
REXXTRY interactive utility (CICRXTRY exec) is issued. REXXTRY provides an interactive shell for
performing REXX statements and commands.
While you are in the editor, you can start another edit session by entering EDIT fileid. The syntax for this
method of invocation is defined in the EDIT command, section “EDIT” on page 240. When you write an
exec, you can start the REXX/CICS editor session by issuing the CICS EDIT transaction identifier as a
command. If a file ID is not specified when you invoke the editor, the file ID defaults to file NONAME in
your current RFS directory. A fully qualified file ID is: poolid:\dir1\dir2\fn.ft
However, you can specify a partial file ID if the target file is in (or is going to be created in) your current
directory (as specified by the CD command).
Examples of how you can call the editor:
EDIT TEST.EXEC (From terminal using CICS transaction ID EDIT)
EDIT TEST.EXEC (From within an edit session using the EDIT editor command)
'EDIT TEST.EXEC' (From within an exec using the EDIT command)
'EDIT TEST.EXEC' (From terminal in a REXX/CICS REXXTRY session)
This example shows four different ways to start an edit session. The first example starts a session from
REXX/CICS. The second starts a new session from an existing session. The third starts a session from a
REXX exec. The fourth starts a session from a REXX/CICS REXXTRY session.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 1992, 2009 231