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CA TPX™ Session Management

ACL/E Programming Guide

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Index 169

14 ACL/E Programming Guide

Chapter 1: ACL/E Overview

This section contains the following topics:

What Is ACL/E?

(see page 15)

CB0VSCRI Library

(see page 16)

Prerequisites

(see page 16)

Conventions Used In This Guide

(see page 16)

What Is ACL/E?

Automated Conversation Language/Extended (ACL/E) is a high-level programming language oriented to the 3270 keyboard. ACL/E automates routine interactions, such as application session signon and signoff, and provides powerful tools that enhance the way users see and use applications. For example, ACL/E works with the CA TPX panel manager to display alternate screen images. This capability serves a wide range of purposes, from supplying customized help panels for applications to re-engineering user interfaces for SAA compliance. ACL/E's ability to coordinate multiple application sessions provides state-of-the-art application integration.

What ACL/E Commands Can Do

■

ACL/E provides commands to:

■

Perform arithmetic and logical operations

■

Examine and manipulate the current screen image

Interact with applications

Issue CA TPX commands

■

Define and manipulate variables

Display an alternate screen image

Integrate multiple sessions

If you include an ACL/E signon program in the user's application session definition, the program executes automatically when the user establishes the application session associated with it. Similarly, if you include a signoff program in the user's application session definition, the program executes when the session associated with it is terminated. ACL/E provides a large number of predefined variables that represent signon data, screen data, the terminal, and input from the user and the application. You can also define your own variables.

Chapter 1: ACL/E Overview 15

CB0VSCRI Library

ACL/E programs can receive input from, and send output to, the terminal, the application, and other ACL/E programs. They can also obtain values from user ID and application session definitions.

Together, these features make ACL/E the ideal tool, not only for automating routine

3270 terminal interactions, but also for significantly expanding the session management capabilities of CA TPX.

CB0VSCRI Library

Sample ACL/E programs are provided in the CB0VSCRI data set. The function of each program is briefly summarized in the $ACLS member.

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with CA TPX and how to use it, as this guide does not explain topics outside of ACL/E. For more information about using CA TPX, see the User Guide.

Conventions Used In This Guide

In this guide, the command character is represented by its default value, which is a slash

(/).

Program Function keys are shown as PFn. For instance, Program Function Key two is represented as PF2.

16 ACL/E Programming Guide

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics

This chapter explains the syntax and semantics of ACL/E statements, commands, and variables. It will help you understand the most basic concepts of ACL/E and prepare you for the tutorial in the next chapter.

This section contains the following topics:

Statements

(see page 17)

Strings

(see page 19)

Accumulators

(see page 20)

Condition Codes

(see page 20)

Statements

An ACL/E program consists of a series of statements.

Purpose

Each statement specifies a particular action to be taken.

Components

The only required component of a statement is a command. In addition, a statement can have one or two operands, a label, and a comment.

Commands

The following is an example of a statement that consists only of a command:

STOP

The STOP command terminates a program's execution. A command must be preceded by a space. If it is not, ACL/E will consider it a label.

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 17

Statements

Operands

Labels

Operands are used to make a command more specific. An example of a statement with one operand is the DOWN command, which moves the cursor down the screen for the number of lines specified by the operand. For example, the statement that moves the cursor down the screen five lines is:

DOWN 5

The command and operand are separated by at least one space. In a statement with only one operand, the operand is terminated by at least one space.

Many commands have two operands. For example, a statement that adds an integer to an accumulator has two operands. The following ADD statement adds 5 to the value of the accumulator A1:

ADD A1,5

Another example is a statement that compares a variable and a string such as

"&USERID" and "USER1":

COMPARE '&USERID','USER1'

Another is a statement that causes the program to branch to another statement if a certain condition code exists. A statement such as the one below may appear after the statement comparing the value of &USERID with the string USER1. The statement says to branch to the statement labeled OKAY if it is true that the value of &USERID is the string USER1:

BRANCH EQ,OKAY

In a statement that contains two operands, the command and first operand are separated by at least one space, and the first and second operands are separated by a comma only. An error message will appear if there is a space before or after the comma.

Labels are used to identify statements that the program branches to if a condition code is set. A label must begin in position 1 and can be up to eight characters long. It must be terminated by at least one space. An example statement containing a label is:

OKAY STOP

18 ACL/E Programming Guide

Strings

Comments

A comment can appear within a statement or on a line by itself. If a comment appears within a statement, it must be preceded by at least one blank. If it appears on a line by itself, it must have an asterisk in the first position (to prevent it from being treated as a label). In the following example, the sentence "End program execution" is a comment:

STOP End program execution

"End program execution" is also a comment in this example:

* End program execution

STOP

Note: For a list of possible actions and the ACL/E commands you use to perform them,

see the appendix

Actions and Commands

(see page 113). For a list of ACL/E commands

and the actions you perform with them, see the appendix

Command Summary

(see

page 119).

Strings

ACL/E operands are strings or constructions that contain strings. A string is a set of characters. The length of a string is determined by the number of characters that comprise it.

Simple Strings

A set of characters that begins with a non-null character and contains no commas, spaces, or quotes is a simple string. Simple strings do not need to be bounded by quotes. A simple string that is not bounded by quotes must be terminated by a space or a comma. The length of a simple string is the number of characters prior to the terminating space or comma. Enclosing a simple string in quotes does not change its length or value. The following examples show two ways to write the same simple string: strings

'strings'

In each case, the length of the string is 7.

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 19

Accumulators

Complex Strings

Character strings that contain commas, spaces, or quotes that are to be treated as data are complex strings. Complex strings are bounded by single quotes. An example of a complex string is:

'This is a complex string.'

The length of the string includes the blanks and the period, but not the single quotes, so the length of the complex string shown above is 25.

Within quotes, a single quote or apostrophe is represented as data by two single quotes

(not a double quote). For example:

'Jane''s book on the Hollywood musical'

'Scott Joplin''s New Rag'

The two single quotes count as one when determining the length of the string. So the first string above has a length of 36 and the second has a length of 22.

Numeric Strings

A numeric string contains only the characters 0 through 9. A numeric string cannot contain leading spaces.

Variable Strings

A variable string contains one or more variables that are resolved at execution time. For example, the variable string "&USERID" in the statement below is replaced by the user's actual user ID when the program executes:

KEY 'Hello, &USERID'

Accumulators

ACL/E has four accumulators, called A1, A2, A3, and A4. Accumulators can be used in place of any numeric. They can be set, incremented, decremented, and compared.

Condition Codes

ACL/E statements such as COMPARE, SEARCH, SRCHWAIT, and others return a condition code, which is then used by a BRANCH statement to determine what the program should do next.

20 ACL/E Programming Guide

Example

Condition Codes

ACL/E uses the following condition codes:

Indicates Equal or found

Indicates Not equal to or not found

Indicates Less than

Indicates Greater than

Indicates Less than or equal to

Indicates Greater than or equal to

The following statements compare the accumulator A1 with the integer 5. If the values are equal, a condition code of EQ is set, causing the BRANCH statement to branch to the statement labeled MORE:

COMPARE A1,5

BRANCH EQ,MORE

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 21

Chapter 3: Tutorial

This tutorial will help you learn about ACL/E through realistic programming samples. The tutorial covers the most commonly used ACL/E commands and variables.

This section contains the following topics:

Introduction

(see page 23)

Create, Store, Start, and Stop ACL/E Programs

(see page 24)

A Program That Says Hello

(see page 25)

A Program That Greets You by User ID

(see page 26)

A Program That Repeats a String

(see page 28)

A Program for Signing on to TSO

(see page 31)

A Program That Displays System Information

(see page 35)

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

(see page 39)

Introduction

In this chapter you will learn how to create, store, start, and stop sample programs

(sometimes called "scripts") that introduce essential ACL/E components. As you analyze these sample programs, you also can do exercises to modify and expand these programs. In this way, you can learn the basic concepts of ACL/E programming without concerning yourself with details and exceptions. At the same time, you can refer to other places in the guide where topics are explained in more detail.

Although the tutorial programs do not illustrate ACL/E's full power, they provide a firm foundation in its syntax and semantics as well as in the major applications of ACL/E programs.

After you are familiar with these fundamentals, you will be able to master the more advanced material presented later in this guide. And you will be ready to put ACL/E to work in your own scenarios.

To make signon and signoff programs execute automatically, you add them to users'

application session definitions. For more information, see the chapter

Working With CA

TPX

(see page 57).

Unless instructed otherwise, you should run the sample programs described in this guide from a CA TPX Notepad session.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 23

Create, Store, Start, and Stop ACL/E Programs

You can create your ACL/E programs with any text editor, but you must store them where CA TPX expects to find them. In z/OS, your programs must be stored as members of a library referenced in the ACLLIB DD statement in your CA TPX startup procedure. In

VM, your programs must be saved as the program name, with the file type TPXACL and mode C. Store the programs you create through this tutorial in your user ACL/E library.

Start ACL/E Program

To start an ACL/E program manually, you issue the ACL/E start command. To do this, type the CA TPX command character, an S, a blank, and the name of the ACL/E program, and then press the command key. If, for example, your command character is the slash

(/) and your command key is PF12, you would start an ACL/E program called ACLHELP in the current session by typing the following command and then pressing PF12:

/S ACLHELP

Note: All examples in this tutorial use the slash (/) as the command character.

To start an ACL/E program in another session, you include that session's session ID in the command. For example, if you are in the TSOA session and you want to start the

ACL/E program ACLHELP in the CICSA session, you would type the following command and then press the command key:

/S CICSA ACLHELP

Stop ACL/E Program

Usually, an ACL/E program will reach a STOP command and terminate. However, if a program "hangs" or goes into an endless loop, you can stop it by typing the following command and then pressing the command key:

When using a non-SNA terminal (or emulator) and the keyboard is locked, you must press the Reset key to unlock the keyboard so that you can type the command. When using an SNA terminal (or emulator) and the keyboard is locked, you must press the Attn key, which takes you back to the menu from where you can issue the STOP command.

24 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Says Hello

The ACL/E program shown below introduces you to programming with ACL/E. This program types the words "Hello, ACL/E" at your terminal.

KEY 'Hello, ACL/E'

STOP

Explanation

All ACL/E programs are made up of one or more statements containing commands specifying the operations to be performed. In addition, a statement can have one or two operands. In the program above, STOP is a statement consisting of a command only. The

KEY statement contains the KEY command and a single operand. A command can begin in any position except position 1, which is reserved for labels.

When a statement includes an operand, the command and the operand must be

separated by at least one space. Statements with two operands are used in

A Program

That Repeats a String

(see page 28) in this chapter.

KEY Statement

The following KEY statement types the string of characters "Hello, ACL/E" on your screen:

KEY 'Hello, ACL/E'

The single quotes identify the operand "Hello, ACL/E" as a character string. A sequence of characters surrounded by single quotes is a character string. For a description of

other types of strings, see the chapter

Syntax and Semantics

(see page 17).

STOP Command

The following STOP command terminates the program:

STOP

ACL/E programs execute sequentially, beginning with the first statement and going through each statement in turn until they encounter a command or condition requiring them to stop or branch to a specified statement.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 25

A Program That Greets You by User ID

Exercise

Create this program using any text editor. Call it HELLO1. Execute it by issuing the following command from the first line of a blank CA TPX Notepad screen (not the command line):

/S HELLO1

As a variation on this exercise, consider what changes you would need to make so that the program displays the words "Good Morning" instead of "Hello, ACL/E".

A Program That Greets You by User ID

A variation on the hello program is one that greets you by your user ID and types the current date and time. For example, if your user ID is USER1, the date is March 5, and the time is 11:16, the program types the following message:

Hello, USER1

Today is 03/05/90

The time is 11:16:00

Sample Program

The program that produces this message is shown below:

*** This program greets the user by user ID ***

DOWN 3

KEY 'Hello, &USERID'

DOWN 1

KEY 'Today is &ZDATE'

DOWN 1

KEY 'The time is &ZTIME'

STOP

Note: Enter the /S command for this program from the command line of a CA TPX

Notepad session.

Explanation

This example shows how variables are used in ACL/E programs and introduces the

DOWN statement. The example also shows you how to add comment text to your ACL/E programs.

*** This program greets the...***

26 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Greets You by User ID

DOWN Statement

The first line in your program is a comment, which in this case briefly describes what the program does. When you execute the program, ACL/E ignores comments. Any text beginning with an asterisk in position 1 is a comment.

The following DOWN statement says to move the cursor down one line:

DOWN 1

The sample program shown above contains three of these statements. Without these statements, the program would attempt to type everything on one line,and the output would be similar to this:

Hello, USER1Today is 03/02/90

The system would display the following error message:

-KEY-OPERATION ENCOUNTERED OUT OF RANGE CONDITION

The error message indicates that the ACL/E program attempted to type into an area that does not accept input.

KEY Command

The KEY command types a string of characters on your screen just as it did inthe program that types “Hello” (as described inA Program That Says Hello inthis chapter).

But the following KEY statements use variables that represent your user ID and the current date and time.

KEY 'Hello, &USERID'

KEY 'Today is &ZDATE'

KEY 'The time is &ZTIME'

&USERID, &ZDATE, and &ZTIME are variable names. ACL/E treats a group of characters preceded by an ampersand (&) and followed by a blank or other delimiter as a variable name. When you execute this program, ACL/E replaces the &ZDATE and &ZTIME with the current date and time. For the variable&USERID, ACL/E substitutes the user ID you entered to sign on to CA TPX.

The variables used in this program are examples of predefined variables available in

ACL/E. You also can define your own variables. For more information about variables,

see the chapter

Defining and Manipulating Variables

(see page 85).

Exercise

Create the program and store it as HELLO2; then execute it in the same manner as you did the program HELLO1.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 27

A Program That Repeats a String

Here is another variation, a program that greets you by user ID ten times. The output begins on the line below the command line and is similar to this:

HELLO, USER1

Sample Program

The program that produces this output is shown below:

*** This program says "hello" 10 times ***

OPTION MAXI,200 maximum instructions

CLEAR press the 'CLEAR' key

SET A1,0 zero loop counter

SET A2,10 set max loop value

MORE NL 1 go to next input line

KEY 'Hello, &USERID' say "hello."

ADD A1,1 increment counter

COMPARE A1,A2 test A1 and A2

BRANCH LT,MORE repeat til A1 = 10

STOP

Explanation

In this program, statements with two operands appear for the first time. This program also introduces inline comments. An inline comment is a string of non-reserved text that is preceded by at least one space after a required command and its operands.

Non-reserved text is text that does not represent an ACL/E command. In this program, the inline comments are spaced to line up at the right of the program statements.

This program also introduces the OPTION, CLEAR, SET, NL, ADD, COMPARE, and BRANCH commands.

28 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Repeats a String

OPTION Statement

The following OPTION statement at the beginning of the sample program sets the maximum number of instructions that the program will execute:

OPTION MAXI,200

This program is set to execute no more than 200 instructions. By specifying a maximum number of instructions, you can prevent a program from going into an uncontrolled loop.

If the program tries to execute more than the maximum number of statements, the following message is displayed:

SCRIPT EXCEEDED INSTRUCTION LIMIT

The term "script" in this message refers to the ACL/E program.

CLEAR Command

The following CLEAR command simulates pressing the Clear key and clears the terminal screen:

CLEAR

To make the program repeat the string "Hello, USER1" ten times, you could repeat a KEY statement ten times. But an easier way to repeat the string is to use a loop.

SET Command

The following SET commands assign values to a variable:

SET A1,0

SET A2,10

The variables A1 and A2 are two of four accumulators that are predefined by ACL/E. (For

a more detailed discussion of accumulators, see the chapter

Using Arithmetic and Logic

(see page 49).) In this program, A1 and A2 control the loop. The first SET statement sets the value of the loop counter A1 to zero (0), while the second sets the maximum loop value A2 to ten (10).

NL Statement

The following NL statement does the same thing as pressing the ¿ (Enter) key on your keyboard:

NL 1

Chapter 3: Tutorial 29

A Program That Repeats a String

The NL statement moves the cursor down one line and positions it in the line's first input field. If you had used the DOWN statement, as in HELLO2, the program would display each line immediately below the last character in the previous line. (To see

HELLO2, see

A Program That Greets You by User ID

(see page 26)).

This would result in the following error message

-KEY-OPERATION ENCOUNTERED AN OUT-OF-

RANGE CONDITION

The error message indicates that the output would not fit in the input field.

KEY Statement

The following KEY statement types the string "Hello USER1" on the terminal screen:

KEY 'Hello, &USERID'

Because this statement is contained in a loop that executes ten times, the statement needs to be specified only once.

ADD and COMPARE Statements

The following ADD statement increments the accumulator A1 each time the loop is executed. The following COMPARE statement then compares the values of the accumulators A1 and A2.

ADD A1,1

COMPARE A1,A2

When a COMPARE statement compares two values, it produces a condition code representing the relationship between them. In this program, a condition code of LT

(less than) indicates that A1 is still less than A2. The condition code is then examined by the BRANCH statement.

BRANCH Statement

The following BRANCH statement uses the condition code to determine what action the program should take next.

BRANCH LT,MORE

In this program, the LT,MORE part of the BRANCH statement specifies that as long as the condition code is LT (A1 is less than A2), the program returns to the statement labeled MORE, which is the first line in the loop. Each time the program executes the loop, it moves the cursor down one line, types the message, increments A1 by one, and then compares A1 to A2 again.

30 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program for Signing on to TSO

The program continues to execute the loop until A1 is equal to A2. When A1 is equal to

A2, the COMPARE statement sets a condition code of EQ. The branch statement only branches to the MORE label if A1 is less than A2, so the program proceeds to the STOP command and terminates.

EQ and LT are two of the seven condition codes used by ACL/E. For a more detailed

discussion of condition codes, see the chapter

Using Arithmetic and Logic

(see page 49).

Exercise

Create the program and store it as HELLO3; then execute it in the same manner as you did the program HELLO1.

A Program for Signing on to TSO

ACL/E programs are most commonly used to automatically sign CA TPX users on to their application sessions. A program that signs you on to TSO is shown below. This program automates the steps you would take during a manual signon, such as checking to make sure you are at the TSO user ID prompt, typing your user ID and password or password phrase, and pressing the Enter key.

*** This program logs a user on to TSO ***

OPTION TERM,ON Display input and output.

WINP Wait for TSO to speak.

USERID SEARCH 'ENTER USERID' Look for prompt

BRANCH NE,AGAIN If no prompt, go to AGAIN.

KEY '&USERID' Enter user ID...

ENTER ...and send it to TSO.

KEY '&PSWD' Enter password.

ENTER ...and send it to TSO.

BRANCH ANY,DONE Go to DONE no matter what.

AGAIN ENTER Try again.

BRANCH ANY,USERID Go to USERID.

DONE STOP All done.

Explanation

This program introduces the ACL/E commands WINP, SEARCH, and ENTER. It also shows you some new ways to use the KEY and BRANCH commands. The following is an explanation of each line in the program.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 31

A Program for Signing on to TSO

OPTION Statement

The following OPTION statement tells the program to display the data on the screen as it is entered:

OPTION TERM,ON

The TSO signon screen will be displayed and you will be able to see the program enter your user ID and password.

WINP Command

The following WINP command tells the ACL/E program to wait for input from an application:

WINP

This program illustrates ACL/E's screen examination capability. In this program, WINP tells the program to halt until TSO displays information on the terminal screen.

SEARCH Statement

BRANCH Statement

The following SEARCH statement is used to search for a string on the application screen:

SEARCH 'ENTER USERID'

In this program, the SEARCH command looks for the string "ENTER USERID" on the terminal screen. Like the COMPARE statement, the SEARCH statement sets a condition code, which the BRANCH statement uses to determine what to do next. In this program, the SEARCH statement sets the condition code EQ (for equal) if the screen contains the string. If the screen does not contain the string, the SEARCH statement sets a condition code of NE (for not equal). The BRANCH statement on the next line acts according to the condition set by the SEARCH statement.

After the SEARCH statement sets a condition code, the following BRANCH statement determines what the program should do next:

BRANCH NE,AGAIN

If the condition code is NE, the branch statement tells the program to go to the line labeled AGAIN, which simulates pressing the Enter key, to attempt to display the TSO signon screen (a discussion of the ENTER command follows). If the condition code is EQ, the program proceeds to the next statement.

32 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program for Signing on to TSO

KEY and ENTER Commands

The following KEY and ENTER commands work together to enter your user ID and password or password phrase in the same way you would if you were manually signing on to TSO:

KEY '&USERID'

ENTER

KEY '&PSWD'

ENTER

The first KEY statement types your user ID on the screen. The ENTER statement on the next line simulates pressing the Enter key from the keyboard. The next two lines enter your password or password phrase in the same way. If you run this program, you will notice that the user ID is displayed on the screen while the password or password phrase is not, just as if you were entering the data manually.

BRANCH Statement

So far you have seen two examples of how the BRANCH statement can be used to redirect the flow of an ACL/E program. For a sample of a program that compares two accumulators to determine whether branching should occur, see A Program That

Repeats a String. In the first BRANCH statement in this program, a string is compared with data on the screen to determine whether branching should occur.

The ANY value allows the BRANCH statements to tell the program to go to the specified label no matter what is going on at that point. In the following BRANCH statement, the label name is DONE. Branch statements with a value of ANY are called unconditional

BRANCH statements. Unconditional BRANCH statements are analogous to GOTO statements in other programming languages in that they are used chiefly to go around other statements.

BRANCH ANY,DONE

Chapter 3: Tutorial 33

A Program for Signing on to TSO

Exercise

Follow this procedure to write and test your TSO logon program:

1. Activate your TSO session to test the program.

2. Identify the program (TSOLOG1) as the startup program for your TSO session (for instructions on setting up a startup program, see "Setting Up Automatic Startup and

Termination Programs").

3. Sign off CA TPX and then sign on again. The changes you made to your user options in step 2 will not take affect until you sign off and sign on again.

4. Activate your TSO session to test the program.

Notice that if the program, as currently written, fails to find the search string, it tries again and again, because nothing stops it from returning to the USERID label when it does not find the string "ENTER USERID" on the screen. To prevent a possible endless loop, add a loop counter to stop the program when it fails to find the target string after three attempts. Use the counter in HELLO3 as a model. To see HELLO3, see A Program

That Repeats a String.

Expand the program so that it takes you to the ISPF main menu after signing you on to

TSO.

34 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Displays System Information

The following program introduces ACL/E's ability to display alternate screen images.

With this feature, you can do everything from providing customized help screens to completely re-engineering the user interface. The program displays the alternate screens that provide news about two computer systems. Users select news screens from a menu.

*** This program displays custom screens

** providing information about Systems 1 and 2.

****************************************************

* Menu Screen

****************************************************

MNU DISPLAY MNU001 Display menu

INPUT Wait for user selection

COMPARE '&TAID','PF1' If PF1...

BRANCH EQ,SYS1 ...go to SYS1 news

COMPARE '&TAID','PF2' If PF2...

BRANCH EQ,SYS2 ...go to SYS2 news

COMPARE '&TAID','PF3' If PF3...

BRANCH EQ,QUIT ...terminate program

****************************************************

* SYS1 Information Screen

****************************************************

SYS1 DISPLAY SYS001 Display SYS1 news

INPUT Wait for user selection

COMPARE '&TAID','PF3' If PF3...

BRANCH EQ,MNU ...return to menu

BRANCH ANY,SYS1 If not PF3,

* redisplay SYS1 news

****************************************************

* SYS2 Information Screen

****************************************************

SYS2 DISPLAY SYS002 Display SYS2 news

INPUT Wait for user selection

COMPARE '&TAID','PF3' If PF3 pressed...

BRANCH EQ,MNU ...return to menu

BRANCH ANY,SYS2 If not PF3,

redisplay SYS2 news

****************************************************

QUIT STOP

Explanation

This program introduces the DISPLAY and INPUT commands as well as the &TAID variable.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 35

A Program That Displays System Information

DISPLAY Statement

The following DISPLAY statement tells ACL/E to display an alternate screen, and the operand in this statement identifies the panel:

DISPLAY MNU001

In z/OS, this value is the data set member of a library referenced in the PANELS DD statement in your CA TPX startup procedure. In VM, this is the file name with file type

PANELS and mode E. The DISPLAY statement in this program tells ACL/E to display the screen contained in the data set member MNU001, which is shown here:

System News Menu

MNU001

PF1 System 1 News

PF2 System 2 News

===>

Press a PF key to display news

This menu tells users to specify whether they want System 1 or System 2 news by pressing PF1 or PF2, respectively. If a user presses PF1, a screen containing System 1 news is displayed. If the user presses PF2, a screen containing System 2 news is displayed.

INPUT Command

The following INPUT command tells the program to wait for the user to press an action key such as PF1, PF2, PF3, etc.:

INPUT

COMPARE and BRANCH Statements

The variable &TAID in the following COMPARE statements represents the key pressed by the user; that is, the last AID (attention identifier) byte received from the terminal in response to the INPUT command. If the user presses PF1, for example, &TAID is given a value of PF1.

COMPARE '&TAID','PF1'

BRANCH EQ,SYS1

The COMPARE statement compares the value of &TAID with "PF1" and sets a condition code that is used by the BRANCH statement. If the condition code is EQ (indicating that the user pressed the PF1 key) the program goes to the statement labeled SYS1, which displays the System 1 News screen. If the condition code is NE (indicating that the user did not press PF1), the program goes to the next statement, which is another COMPARE statement.

36 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Displays System Information

The following COMPARE statement compares the value of &TAID with "PF2" and sets a condition code that is used by the BRANCH statement:

COMPARE '&TAID','PF2'

BRANCH EQ,SYS2

If the condition code is EQ (indicating that the user pressed the PF2 key) the program goes to the statement labeled SYS2, which displays the System 2 News screen. If the condition code is NE (indicating that the user did not press PF2), the program goes to the next statement, which checks to see if the user pressed PF3. If the user did press

PF3, the BRANCH statement terminates the ACL/E program.

The program uses the same logic to determine whether it should return to the menu from a news screen. If the user presses PF3 while viewing a news screen, the program returns to the statement labeled MNU that displays the menu screen (MNU001).

Create Alternate Screens

You can create panels for alternate screens using any text editor, and you must store them where CA TPX expects to find them. In z/OS, store your panel definitions as a data set member in a library referenced by the PANELS DD statement in your CA TPX startup procedure. In VM, store the panel definitions as the panel name with file type PANELS and mode E.

Exercise

Create the program and store it as SYSINFO1. Create the panels shown here in the specified file. Explain what you would need to do to display information about other systems at your site. Indicate what you would need to add to create a hierarchy of menus—for example, to display a System 1 and a System 2 menu, each listing three system-specific information screens.

Note: If the user presses a key other than PF1, PF2, or PF3, the program as it is written will display the System 1 News screen since that is the next statement in the program.

Change the program so that it displays an error message if the user does not press PF1 or PF2.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 37

A Program That Displays System Information

The System News Menu

The following program shows the panel definition for the System News Menu (data set member MNU001):

)ATTR

% TYPE(text) INTENSE(HI) SKIP(ON) COLOR(white)

+ TYPE(text) INTENSE(LOW) SKIP(ON) COLOR(green)

_ TYPE(input) INTENSE(LOW) COLOR(white)

)BODY

+ System News Menu

&zpanel

%PF1 +System 1 News

%PF2 +System 2 News

+ ===>_acmd

%Press a PF key to display news

)INIT

)END

The System1 News Panel

The following program shows the panel for the System 1 screen (data set member

SYS001):

)ATTR

% TYPE(text) INTENSE(HI) SKIP(ON) COLOR(white)

+ TYPE(text) INTENSE(LOW) SKIP(ON) COLOR(green)

_ TYPE(input) INTENSE(LOW) COLOR(white)

)BODY

+ System 1 News

&zpanel

System 1 will be down for maintenance from 6:00 p.m

Friday, May 25 to 6:00 a.m. Saturday.

%PF3 +Return to Menu

+ ===>_acmd

)INIT

)END

38 ACL/E Programming Guide

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

The System2 News Panel

The following program shows the panel for the System 2 screen (data set member

SYS002):

)ATTR

% TYPE(text) INTENSE(HI) SKIP(ON) COLOR(white)

+ TYPE(text) INTENSE(LOW) SKIP(ON) COLOR(green)

_ TYPE(input) INTENSE(LOW) COLOR(white)

)BODY

+ System 2 News

&zpanel

Please delete data sets you do not need.

%PF3 +Return to Menu

+ ===>_acmd

)INIT

)END

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

The following two programs introduce ACL/E's ability to integrate multiple sessions. The programs let you copy a session screen image into a TSO data set member. The first program (SCREEN1) copies the screen data into an array, then schedules the second program (SCREEN2), which copies the stored data into a data set member.

Note: If you plan to create these programs and use them on your own system, make sure that you are using a model 2, 3, or 4 terminal. These programs will not execute correctly on a model 5 terminal, because the display is 132 columns wide.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 39

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

Copy the Screen Data into an Array

Program SCREEN1, shown below, copies the screen data into an array. This program assumes that the session T2 is active.

OPTION FLOW,OFF

OPTION TERM,ON

OPTION MAXI,9999

SET A1,1

SET A2,1

UDEFINE LINECT,3

SET LINECT,&SCRNROWS

UDEFINE DATA(50),80

ULOOP SET DATA(&A1),&SCREEN(&A2,80)

ADD A1,1

ADD A2,80

COMPARE A1,&SCRNROWS

BRANCH LE,ULOOP

ACLPGM T2,SCREEN2

STOP

Explanation of SCREEN1 Program

This program determines the number of lines on the screen and then goes through the data line by line, copying each line into a variable array. As soon as the number of lines read into the array is equal to the number of lines on the screen, the program schedules the second program, which copies the data in the array to a data set member.

OPTION Statement

The program SCREEN1 begins with the following OPTION statements:

OPTION FLOW,OFF

OPTION TERM,ON

OPTION MAXI,9999

■

OPTION FLOW,OFF says not to record the statements executed in the CA TPX log.

■

OPTION TERM,ON says to display data as it is entered. This allows you to watch the screen data being copied into the data set member.

■

OPTION MAXI,9999 says to set the maximum number of instructions executed to

9999.

40 ACL/E Programming Guide

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

SET Statement

UDEFINE Command

To count the number of lines, you use accumulators A1 and A2. These accumulators are initially set to 1 with the following SET statements:

SET A1,1

SET A2,1

UDEFINE is one of three commands used for defining variables. Variables defined with the UDEFINE command are known as persistent variables because they remain in effect for all of a user's sessions until the user terminates all sessions and signs off CA TPX. The other types of user-defined variables are transient variables and global variables.

Transient variables remain in effect until the ACL/E program in which they are defined terminates. The command VDEFINE is used to define transient variables. Global variables can be used by any ACL/E program running in this CA TPX, and remain in effect until they are deleted. The command GDEFINE is used to define global variables. For

more information on defining variables, see

Defining and Manipulating Variables

(see

page 85).

In this program, the following UDEFINE command is used to define a variable named

LINECT with a length of three (3) characters. This variable records the number of lines on the screen being copied.

UDEFINE LINECT,3

SET LINECT,&SCRNROWS

SET Statement

The following SET statement sets the value of the LINECT variable to the total number of lines on the screen:

SET LINECT,&SCRNROWS

&SCRNROWS is an ACL/E variable which represents the total number of rows (or lines) on the screen. For example, if a screen has 24 lines, the value of &SCRNROWS is 24.

Two other ACL/E variables are &SCRNCOLS, which represents the number of columns on the screen, and &SCRNSIZE, which represents the total number of characters on the screen (absolute screen size) in bytes. For example, if a screen has 80 columns and 24 rows, the value of &SCRNSIZE is 1920.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 41

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

UDEFINE Statement

The following UDEFINE statement defines an array variable named DATA:

UDEFINE DATA(50),80

An array is a variable that can contain many different values, each of which can be stored and retrieved separately. This array has been defined as having 50 elements, meaning that it can contain 50 different values. Each element can contain up to 80 characters. In the variable name, the elements are specified by number. For example,

DATA(1) refers to the value in the first element, DATA(2) refers to the value in the second element, etc.

DATA will contain the screen data. The definition of DATA assumes that the screen being copied consists of no more than 50 lines, and that the lines contain no more than 80 characters.

SET Statement

The remainder of the program is a loop that copies lines of data from the screen into

&DATA until the last line of the screen is reached.

The following command copies 80 characters of screen data (one row) into an element of DATA. As long as the value of A1 is less than or equal to the number of screen rows, the program will copy rows into the array. For example, assume that the screen contains

24 lines. When the program is completed, the first 24 elements of DATA will contain the screen data. Each element will contain 80 characters.

ULOOP SET DATA(&A1),&SCREEN(&A2,80)

Substring Notation

The (&A2,80) part of the following statement is referred to as substring notation. This means that it represents only one part of the total value of the variable &SCREEN.

&SCREEN is an ACL/E variable that represents all the data on the screen and &A2 is the value of the accumulator A2. So &SCREEN(&A2,80) represents the 80 characters of screen data starting at position A2.

SET DATA(&A1),&SCREEN(&A2,80)

In this program, each time the loop is executed, A1 is incremented by 1 and A2 is incremented by 80. So, the first time the loop is executed (A1=1 and A2=1), DATA(1) is assigned a value equal to the 80 characters of screen data starting with position 1 on the screen. The second time the loop is executed (A1=2 and A2=81), DATA (2) is assigned a value equal to the 80 characters of screen data starting with position 81 on the screen, and so on.

42 ACL/E Programming Guide

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

ADD Statement

After copying the screen data into an array element, the program uses the following

ADD statements to increment A1 by 1 and A2 by 80:

ADD A1,1

ADD A2,80

These increments prepare the program to copy the next line of the screen into the next array element.

COMPARE and BRANCH Statements

The program uses the following COMPARE and BRANCH statements to make sure that all the lines of the screen have not been copied yet before executing the loop again:

COMPARE A1,&SCRNROWS

BRANCH LE,ULOOP

The COMPARE statement compares the value of A1 to the total number of rows on the screen (&SCRNROWS). As long as A1 is less than or equal to (LE) the number of rows on the screen, the program will execute the loop again to copy another line of the screen.

ACLPGM Command

After all the lines of the screen are copied, the program schedules the second program with the following ACLPGM command:

ACLPGM T2,SCREEN2

SCREEN2 is the name of the second program and T2 is the session ID for TSO. (TSO can have a different session ID on your system.) The session specified in the ACLPGM statement (T2 in this case) must be active when the command is executed.

Chapter 3: Tutorial 43

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

Copy the Data into a Data Set Member

Program SCREEN2, shown below, is scheduled by the first program, SCREEN1. This program is executed in a TSO ISPF session and copies the data from the array created in the first program into a data set member.

OPTION FLOW,OFF

OPTION TERM,ON

OPTION MAXI,9999

ELOOP COMPARE &SCREEN(31,14),'PRIMARY OPTION'

BRANCH EQ,EDIT

PF 3

BRANCH ANY,ELOOP KEEP BACKING UP

EDIT KEY '2' SELECT EDIT

ENTER ENTER

HOME PRESS THE HOME KEY

TABF 8 TAB TO 'OTHER DSN'

KEY '''TPX.USER.PANELS(SCREEN)'''

ENTER GO INTO EDIT

KEY 'CAPS OFF' GO TO CAPS OFF

ENTER

NL 1 TAB TO FIRST LINE

KEY 'I' INSERT A LINE (letter "i")

ENTER

TABF 1 PLACE THE CURSOR IN THE FIRST

TABB 1 POSITION OF THE LINE (AFTER INSERT)

SET A1,1 SET COUNTER

*EVERYTHING IS SET UP. NOW LOOP THROUGH THE LINES.

KLOOP1 KEY &DATA(&A1)(1,70)) KEY ONE LINE

ADD A1,1 NEXT LINE

COMPARE A1,&LINECT ARE WE DONE?

BRANCH GT,STOP YES

ENTER MAKES A NEW LINE

TABF 1 PLACE THE CURSOR IN THE FIRST

TABB 1 POSITION OF THE LINE (AFTER INSERT)

BRANCH ANY,KLOOP1 CONTINUE

STOP UDELETE LINECT DELETE LINE COUNT

UDELETE DATA DELETE ARRAY STOP

Explanation of SCREEN2 Program

This program copies the screen data from the array created in the first program to a TSO data set member.

44 ACL/E Programming Guide

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

COMPARE and BRANCH Statements

The following COMPARE statement checks to see if you are at the ISPF Primary Option screen by comparing the 14 characters starting at position 31 with the string "PRIMARY

OPTION". If you are at the ISPF Option screen, the first BRANCH statement directs the program to the line labeled EDIT, which prepares a TSO data set member to receive the data from the array. If you are not at the ISPF Primary Option screen, the PF statement simulates the PF3 key to back out to the option screen. The second BRANCH statement then directs the program to execute the COMPARE statement again.

COMPARE &SCREEN(31,14),'PRIMARY OPTION'

BRANCH EQ,EDIT

PF 3

BRANCH ANY,ELOOP

The SEARCH command could have been used here to produce the same result. The difference between the SEARCH and COMPARE statements is that the COMPARE statement will determine if the string is in a particular place on the screen and the

SEARCH statement simply determines whether the string is displayed somewhere on the screen.

KEY, ENTER, HOME, and TABF Statements

The following statements open the data set member into which the screen data will be copied:

KEY '2'

ENTER

HOME

TABF 8

The KEY and ENTER statements type the numeral 2 on the command line of the ISPF

Option screen to select the edit option and simulate the Enter key.

The HOME command simulates pressing the HOME key to place the cursor in the first data entry field on the screen. In this case, the first data entry field is the command line.

The TABF statement tells the program to simulate pressing the ®| (forward TAB) key eight times, which places the cursor on the "Other Data Set Name" field.

KEY and ENTER Statements

The following KEY and ENTER statements enter the name of the data set member to which the screen data will be copied:

KEY '''TPX.USER.PANELS(SCREEN)'''

ENTER

Chapter 3: Tutorial 45

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

The extra single quotes are necessary because the string itself contains single quotes.

The outermost pair of quotes identifies the string to ACL/E, while the two inner pairs of quotes represent the single quotes that TSO expects in the name of the data set member.

KEY, ENTER, NL, TABF, and TABB Statements

The first KEY and ENTER statements shown below turn off the CAPS option in ISPF. The

NL statement places the cursor in the command area of the first line in the input area.

The next KEY statement enters the letter "I" in the input area, and the ENTER command simulates the Enter key to make a blank line in the data set.

The TABF and TABB commands simulate pressing the ®| (forward tab) and |¬ (back tab) keys. In this program, the TABF statement moves the cursor forward to the next input field and the TABB statement moves the cursor back to the previous input field. This is done to ensure that the cursor is in the first space of the inserted line.

KEY 'CAPS OFF'

ENTER

NL 1

KEY 'I'

ENTER

TABF 1

TABB 1

SET Statement

The following SET statement assigns a value of 1 to the accumulator A1:

SET A1,1

The accumulator is used in this program to determine when all the array elements have been entered into the TSO data set.

KEY Statement

The following KEY statement copies the data from the array element to the current line in the data set member:

KEY &DATA(&A1)(1,70)

The first time this loop is executed, the program copies the data in the array element

&DATA(1), and the second time the loop is executed, it copies the data in &DATA(2), and so on.

46 ACL/E Programming Guide

Programs That Copy a Screen Image to a Data Set

Because ISPF displays only 72 columns of text on one line, the program copies only 70 characters of the screen data from each array element. However, ISPF does allow you to scroll right and left with the PF keys, so think about what statements you would need to add to copy all 80 characters of the screen text.

COMPARE and BRANCH Statements

The following COMPARE statement compares the value of A1 to the total number of rows on the screen to determine if all the lines of the screen have been copied:

COMPARE A1,&LINECT

BRANCH GT,STOP

If A1 is greater than (GT) the number of rows on the screen, the BRANCH statement directs the program to the line labeled STOP, where the variable LINECT is deleted and the program ends.

ENTER, TABF, TABB, and BRANCH Statements

If the previous BRANCH statement did not redirect the program, the following ENTER command simulates pressing the Enter key to add a new line:

ENTER

TABF 1

TABB 1

BRANCH ANY,KLOOP1

The BRANCH statement directs the program to the statement labeled KLOOP1, which copies the next line of screen data.

Exercise

Create these two programs. Call the first program SCREEN1 and the second one

SCREEN2. Before running them, change the TSO session ID in the ACLPGM statement in

SCREEN1 from T2 to your TSO session ID, if necessary. Then, change the data set member reference in SCREEN2 to the name of your own data set. Now, run SCREEN1 from an online administration panel by issuing the following command in the ADMIN session:

/S SCREEN1

Chapter 3: Tutorial 47

Chapter 4: Using Arithmetic and Logic

This chapter discusses the ACL/E commands and variables that are used for arithmetic and logical operations and for conditional actions.

This section contains the following topics:

Setting and Manipulating Accumulators

(see page 49)

COMPARE Statement

(see page 51)

Setting and Manipulating Accumulators

ACL/E provides the tools necessary to perform arithmetic and logical operations. This chapter describes accumulators and statements that can be used for a variety of purposes, including the execution of loops within an ACL/E program.

ACL/E has four accumulators (A1 through A4), which can be used to represent any numeric value. In an ACL/E program, you can set the value of an accumulator and then increment or decrement it.

Set Value of an Accumulator

To set the value of an accumulator, use the SET command. The format for a SET statement is as follows:

SET variable,value where variable is the name of the accumulator or other variable and value is the value that you want to assign to the variable. For example, the following statement assigns a value of 5 to the accumulator A1:

SET A1,5

You can also set an accumulator equal to another accumulator. For example, if you have already set A1 to 5, you can set A2 to 5 using the following statement:

SET A2,A1

In the SET statement, the first operand (which must be a variable) is assigned the value specified in the second operand, whether the value is numeric or another variable.

Chapter 4: Using Arithmetic and Logic 49

Setting and Manipulating Accumulators

Increment an Accumulator

To increment an accumulator, use the ADD command. The format for an ADD statement is:

ADD accumulator,value where accumulator is one of ACL/E's accumulators and value is a numeric value to be added to the variable. For example, the following statement increments A3 by 5:

ADD A3,5

You can also increment an accumulator by the value of another accumulator. For example, the following statement increments the value of A3 by the value of A2:

ADD A3,A2

The accumulator that is being incremented must be in the first operand position, so the following statement increments A2 by the value of A3:

ADD A2,A3

Decrement an Accumulator

To decrement an accumulator, use the SUB command. The format for a SUB statement is:

SUB accumulator,value where accumulator is one of ACL/E's accumulators and value is the numeric value to be subtracted from the variable. For example, the following statement decrements the accumulator A3 by 5:

SUB A3,5

You can also decrement an accumulator by the value of another accumulator. For example, the following statement decrements A3 by the value of A2:

SUB A3,A2

The accumulator that is being decremented must be in the first operand position, so the following statement decrements A2 by the value of A3:

SUB A2,A3

50 ACL/E Programming Guide

COMPARE Statement

The COMPARE command is used to determine the relationship between two operands.

You can compare an accumulator with another accumulator, an integer with an accumulator, a variable with a string of characters, and so on. This section illustrates some of the most common uses for the COMPARE statement.

Format

The format for a COMPARE statement is:

COMPARE operand1,operand2 where operand1 and operand2 can be accumulators, integers, strings, screen data, or any other variables.

Compare Values of Two Accumulators

You can use the COMPARE command to compare the values of two accumulators. The following statement compares the value of the accumulator A1 with the value of the accumulator A2:

COMPARE A1,A2

The result of the comparison is represented by a condition code that indicates the relationship between A1 and A2. The condition code is then set and can be examined by the next statement in the program, a BRANCH statement that uses it to determine where to go next.

In the following program, ACL/E compares the values of accumulators A1 and A2.

Because the values are equal, the program branches to the statement labeled EQUAL, which types the message "A1 and A2 are equal." If the values were not equal, the program would execute the statement immediately following the BRANCH statement, which types the message "A1 and A2 are not equal."

SET A1,10

SET A2,10

COMPARE A1,A2

BRANCH EQ,EQUAL

KEY 'A1 and A2 are not equal.'

STOP

EQUAL KEY 'A1 and A2 are equal.'

STOP

Chapter 4: Using Arithmetic and Logic 51

COMPARE Statement

Condition Codes Produced by the COMPARE Command

The following condition codes apply to comparisons between accumulators, variables, and strings:

■

EQ—equal to

■

NE—not equal to

■

GT—greater than

■

LT—less than

■

LE—less than or equal to

■

GE—greater than or equal to

An Example of the COMPARE Command

The following statement compares the value of A1 to the value of A2:

COMPARE A1,A2

The condition code produced by the statement depends on the values held in A1 and

A2:

■

If the value of A1 is 5, and the value of A2 is 6, the condition code will be LT.

■

If the value of A1 is 6, and the value of A2 is 5, the condition will be GT.

■

If the value of A1 is 6 and the value of A2 is 6, the condition code will be EQ.

Compare Value of an Accumulator with an Integer

ACL/E can also compare the value of an accumulator with a positive integer. For example, you can rewrite the program that compares the values of accumulators A1 and

A2 to compare the value of A1 and the integer 10. The following is an example of such a program:

SET A1,10

COMPARE A1,10

BRANCH EQ,EQUAL

KEY 'A1 does not equal 10.'

STOP

EQUAL KEY 'A1 equals 10.'

STOP

52 ACL/E Programming Guide

COMPARE Statement

DO NOT put single quotes around the accumulator. The COMPARE command determines whether the compare action is numeric or string by checking the syntax of the statement. Single quotes around the accumulator indicate that it should be processed as a string. The COMPARE command does not recognize that the string refers to an accumulator.

For example, if A1 has a value of 3 and A2 has a value of 21, the following COMPARE statement compares the numeric values of the A1 and A2 and sets a condition code of

LT:

COMPARE A1,A2

However, the single quotes in the following COMPARE statement indicate that A1 and

A2 are to be compared as strings. As a result, the statement sets a condition code of NE because "A1" is not identical to "A2":

COMPARE 'A1','A2'

Compare Two Strings

ACL/E can also compare two strings to determine whether they are identical. The following elementary example shows you how a statement comparing two strings looks:

COMPARE 'Hello','Goodbye'

The result of this comparison is represented by the condition code NE, which indicates that the two strings are not identical.

Compare a Variable and a String

Although you may not find a use for comparisons between two constant strings, you will probably find comparisons between variables and strings very useful. The following program shows a statement that determines whether the user ID entered by a user matches a valid user ID (in this case, USER1). If the user ID is valid, the program continues. If not, the program terminates.

COMPARE '&USERID','USER1'

BRANCH EQ,MORE

STOP

MORE KEY 'Hello.'

STOP

Chapter 4: Using Arithmetic and Logic 53

COMPARE Statement

Use Substring Notation to Compare a Variable and a String

You can also use substring notation in variable/string comparisons. For example, the following is a statement that uses substring notation to determine whether the three characters beginning at position 1 of a user ID are "DEV":

COMPARE '&USERID(1,3)','DEV'

The statement says to begin with the first character position in the user ID and compare the first three characters with the target string "DEV."

Compare Screen Data with a String

In many programs, you will want to know whether the current screen is the one the program will be interacting with. For example, before a program that signs a user on to an application enters the user ID and password, it must determine that the current screen is the application signon screen. To do this, it searches the screen for data that identifies the signon screen.

The command for searching the screen is SEARCH. For example, the following statement determines whether the current screen contains the string "ENTER USERID":

SEARCH 'ENTER USERID'

The result of the search is represented by a condition code that indicates whether the string is present. The next statement, which is a BRANCH statement, uses this condition code to determine where to go next.

The following program examines the current screen to determine if it contains the string

"ENTER USERID." If the string is present, the program branches to the statement labeled

TSO, which enters the user ID, then goes to the next statement, which enters the password. If the string is not present, the program executes the statement that immediately follows the BRANCH statement. In this case, the next statement is the STOP statement, which terminates the program.

SEARCH 'ENTER USERID'

BRANCH EQ,TSO

STOP

TSO KEY '&USERID'

ENTER

KEY '&PASSWORD'

ENTER

STOP

54 ACL/E Programming Guide

COMPARE Statement

Only two condition codes are valid SEARCH results:

Inidicates that the string is present on the current screen

Inidcates that the string is not present on the current screen.

Search a String for Another String

You can search a string for another string with the SCAN command. For example, the following statement determines if the string contained in the variable &USERID contains the string ADMIN.

SCAN '&USERID','ADMIN'

Only two condition codes are valid SCAN results:

Indicates that the string is present in the string that was searched. The variable

&LOC is set to the position of the string found within the string that was search.

Indicates that the string is not present in the string that was searched.

The variable &LOC expresses the position as the number of characters from the beginning of the string being searched. For example the following SCAN statement sets

&LOC to 3:

SCAN 'ENTERDATA','TER'

Chapter 4: Using Arithmetic and Logic 55

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX

This chapter shows you how to make your ACL/E programs issue commands, assign automatic signon and signoff programs for applications, and use the message log.

This section contains the following topics:

Issue Commands

(see page 57)

Terminate a Session

(see page 58)

Sign a User Off CA TPX

(see page 59)

Log a User's Terminal off CA TPX

(see page 59)

Execute an ACL/E Program from an ACL/E Program

(see page 59)

Set Up Automatic Startup and Termination Programs

(see page 60)

Record Executed Commands in the Message Log

(see page 61)

Write a Message to the Log

(see page 61)

Display Application Data at the Terminal

(see page 62)

Redirect an Idle ACL/E Program

(see page 62)

Prevent Uncontrolled Loops

(see page 62)

Make an ACL/E Program Memory Resident

(see page 64)

Specify ACL/E Information in Administration

(see page 64)

Issue Commands

An ACL/E program can issue any command or sequence of commands so that you can return to the menu, jump to another session, start a new session, or lock the screen to force a user to re-enter the password.

A COMMAND statement is used to issue a command from an ACL/E program, such as jumping to the next session or displaying the menu. You can use COMMAND statements to terminate sessions, sign users off, and log terminals off. The following sections discuss alternative ACL/E commands you can use to perform these functions.

The format for a COMMAND statement is:

COMMAND 'command string' where 'command string' is the command you want to execute. If the command string contains spaces or punctuation, the string must be enclosed in single quotes. If the command string does not contain spaces or punctuation, the single quotes are optional.

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX 57

Terminate a Session

Examples

Here are some examples of how you might use a COMMAND statement in an ACL/E program.

The following statement displays the menu:

COMMAND 'W'

This statement is used to "jump" to the next session:

COMMAND 'J'

This statement switches to the session with the session ID of T2:

COMMAND 'T2'

This statement locks the terminal:

COMMAND 'L'

This statement activates the TPXOPER session:

COMMAND 'A TPXOPER'

Note: The COMMAND statement schedules the command to execute. As soon as the command is scheduled to execute, the program continues with the next statement.

Execution continues in the session in which the program was started, even after a

COMMAND 'J' statement, which simulates the JUMP key.

Terminate a Session

Because session termination is one of the most common uses of ACL/E programs, ACL/E provides the following command to terminate a session:

TERMSESS

You can also use the following COMMAND statement to terminate a session:

COMMAND 'I'

This command will activate any signoff program for the session.

58 ACL/E Programming Guide

Sign a User Off CA TPX

ACL/E provides the following command to sign a user off:

SIGNOFF

You can also use the following COMMAND statement to sign a user off:

COMMAND 'F'

You cannot always use these two statements interchangeably. For example, if you have specified in a user's definition (in the "Inactivate On" field) that CA TPX terminate the user's sessions when the /F command is issued, you would not want to use the SIGNOFF command to sign that user off. If you did, the user's sessions would remain active since the /F command was not issued. In this case, you would use COMMAND 'F', which simulates the /F command and inactivates the sessions as specified in the user's definition.

Log a User's Terminal off CA TPX

ACL/E provides the following command to log off a user's terminal:

LOGOFF

You can also use the following COMMAND statement to log off a user's terminal:

COMMAND 'K'

You cannot always use these two statements interchangeably. For example, if you have specified in a user's definition (in the "Inactivate On" field) that CA TPX terminate the user's sessions when the /K command is issued, you would not want to use the LOGOFF command to log a user's terminal off CA TPX. If you did, the user's sessions would remain active since the /K command was not issued. In this case, you would use

COMMAND 'K', which simulates the /K command and inactivates the sessions as specified in the user's definition.

Execute an ACL/E Program from an ACL/E Program

You can schedule another ACL/E program to execute from an ACL/E program. The scheduled program can execute in the current session or in another active session.

When the scheduled program executes in the current session, the main program is suspended until the scheduled program completes execution. Variables from the main program are available to the scheduled program.

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX 59

Set Up Automatic Startup and Termination Programs

ACLPGM Command

The ACLPGM command schedules another ACL/E program. For example, the following statement calls a program named NEWPRG1 to execute in the current session:

ACLPGM NEWPRG1

To make the scheduled program execute in an active session other than the current session, use this format:

ACLPGM sessID,progname where sessID is the ID for an active session in which you want to execute the program and progname is the name of the ACL/E program. For example, this statement schedules a program named NEWPRG1 to execute in the session named T2:

ACLPGM T2,NEWPRG1

Note: The ACLPGM command does not suspend execution of the main program when a program is scheduled to run in another session. For information about suspending execution of an ACL/E program while the scheduled program is executing, see Waiting for Notification from Scheduled Programs.

Set Up Automatic Startup and Termination Programs

A startup ACL/E program can take control automatically when a session is activated. The startup program can sign the user on to the application session, and perform application setup, such as taking the user to a particular screen. You must identify the program as the startup program by specifying its name in the "Startup ACL" field of the user's application session definition.

Bypass the Startup Program from the TPX Menu

The user can bypass the startup ACL/E program by activating the session using the /G command from the TPX Menu.

Termination Programs

Similarly, a termination ACL/E program can take control when a session is inactivated with the /I command or the TPXOPER CANCEL command. The termination program will sign the user off the session. You must identify the program as the termination program by specifying its name in the "TermACL" field of the user's application session definition.

60 ACL/E Programming Guide

Record Executed Commands in the Message Log

You can record the sequence of an ACL/E program's executed commands in the message log. In z/OS, your message log is identified by the LOG DD statement in your startup procedure. In VM, the message log is identified by the LOG FILEDEF statement in your startup exec.

Record Program Execution

To record all of the program's execution, include the following statement at the beginning of the program:

OPTION FLOW,ON

Turn Off Recording

To turn recording off, use the following form of the statement:

OPTION FLOW,OFF

The default value for this command is OFF.

Note: You can start or stop recording to the message log at any point in the program.

Write a Message to the Log

ACL/E programs can write messages to the message log at any time during execution. In z/OS, your message log is identified by the LOG DD statement in your startup procedure.

In VM, the message log is identified by the LOG FILEDEF statement in your startup exec.

Specify Message Text

Messages written to the Message Log are helpful in debugging ACL/E programs. To specify the message text (up to 60 characters long), issue the MSG command. For example, the message "USER1 linked to CICSA" will be written to the message log each time the user starts a CICS session if you include the following statement in a CICS startup program:

MSG '&USERID linked to CICSA.'

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX 61

Display Application Data at the Terminal

You can specify whether application data should be displayed on the terminal screen by using the OPTION command with the TERM operand. If you want to show the user what the ACL/E program and the application are typing on the screen, include the following statement in your ACL/E program:

OPTION TERM,ON

Stop Displaying Data

To stop showing the interactions between the ACL/E program and the application, include the following statement in your ACL/E program:

OPTION TERM,OFF

The default value for this command is OFF.

Note: You can start or stop displaying data on the terminal screen at any point in the program.

Redirect an Idle ACL/E Program

You may want an ACL/E program to branch to a statement with a specified label if no activity occurs for a specified number of seconds. To branch to the statement labeled

RESUME after 60 seconds of inactivity, use the following statement:

OPTION TIME=60,RESUME

If the time out is executed, it is not reset.

Remove Time Restriction

You can remove the time restriction with the following statement:

OPTION TIME,OFF

Prevent Uncontrolled Loops

You can guard against uncontrolled looping in an ACL/E program by specifying the maximum number of instructions the program is allowed to execute. When the maximum is reached, the program will terminate. The range of values is 0 to 64,000. Use

0 to specify no limit. The default value is 50.

62 ACL/E Programming Guide

Prevent Uncontrolled Loops

Examples

To terminate a program after 100 instructions are executed, use the following statement:

OPTION MAXI,100

To indicate that there is no limit on the number of instructions that can be executed, use the following statement:

OPTION MAXI,0

Set a Runaway Limit

Uncontrolled loops are also prevented by the runaway limit specified in CA TPX

Administration. The runaway limit is an additional safeguard against uncontrolled loops, and cannot be disabled or changed by an ACL/E statement such as OPTION MAXI.

Certain ACL/E commands relinquish control of the program to the user, terminal, or application. Examples of commands that relinquish control are ENTER, PF, PA, INPUT,

SEND, PAUSE, WAIT, and SUSPEND. Other ACL/E commands, such as ADD, KEY, TABF, and VDEFINE, do not relinquish control because they do not require any action from the user, terminal, or application.

An OPTION MAXI sets the total number of ACL/E statements that CA TPX will process before terminating the ACL/E program. A counter is updated each time a CA TPX executes a statement. When the counter reaches the specified value, the program terminates. The counter is updated regardless of whether the statement relinquishes control of the program.

The runaway limit, however, is the number of consecutive non-relinquishing statements that CA TPX will process before terminating the program. The counter for the runaway statement limit is updated each time a non-relinquishing ACL/E statement executes, and is reset to zero whenever an ACL/E statement that relinquishes control executes. If the value of this counter reaches the runaway limit, this product terminates the ACL/E program and writes the following message to the Log (if OPTION FLOW,ON is specified):

RUNAWAY CONDITION OCCURRED

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX 63

Make an ACL/E Program Memory Resident

When an ACL/E program terminates, it is removed from active memory. You can improve performance of an ACL/E program that is used frequently by keeping it resident in active memory so that it does not have to be loaded from the library each time it is used. To do this, include the following statement:

OPTION RESIDENT,ON

Reload a Program

If you change an ACL/E program while it is memory resident, the change will not take effect until the program is reloaded.

To reload an ACL/E program from an operator's session, type the following statement:

RELOAD ACL=progname

To reload an ACL/E program from a system operator's console, type the following statement:

F TPX,RELOAD ACL=progname where progname is the name of the ACL/E program you want to reload.

Specify ACL/E Information in Administration

If an ACL/E program is to be executed when a user starts or terminates a session, you must identify it in either a global or user-level application session definition. In addition, you can provide values for ACL/E variables in user-level application session definitions.

Specify Startup and Termination ACL/E Programs

You specify the name of an application's default startup and termination ACL/E programs in the "Start ACLPGM" and "Termination ACLPGM" fields of the Application

Characteristics Table entry.

At the user and profile levels, you specify the names of an application session's startup

ACL/E and termination ACL/E in the "Startup ACL" and "Term ACL" fields of the user's application session definition.

64 ACL/E Programming Guide

Specify ACL/E Information in Administration

Specify ACL/E Variable Values

An ACL/E program can obtain values from a user's application session definition. The variables &SID and &APPL get their values from the "Session ID" and "Applid" fields. If the user's session user ID and password are different from the ones used for signing on to CA TPX, you specify them in the "ACL Userid" and "ACL Password" fields, respectively.

The ACL/E variables &P1 through &P8 get their values from the "Parm 1" through "Parm

8" fields in session options for a user.

Chapter 5: Working With CA TPX 65

Chapter 6: Interacting With Applications

This chapter discusses the ACL/E commands and variables you can use to make an ACL/E program interact with an application session in the same way that a user would.

This section contains the following topics:

Identify Application Sessions

(see page 67)

Describe Application Sessions

(see page 68)

Send Data to the Application

(see page 68)

Receive Data from the Application

(see page 69)

Receive Data from the User

(see page 71)

Issue an Attention Interrupt

(see page 73)

Terminate the Application Session

(see page 73)

Control Application Sessions with OPENGATE

(see page 73)

Identify Application Sessions

ACL/E provides a variety of commands and variables that allow ACL/E programs to interact with an application session. You can use these commands and variables to identify the session by application ID or session ID, to send information to the application, and to wait for information from the session. Other commands described in this chapter allow ACL/E programs to wait for input from the user.

ACL/E provides variables that represent the VTAM name (application ID) or the session

ID of the session in which an ACL/E program is running.

VTAM Name Variable

The variable that represents the VTAM name of the session in which the program is running is:

&APPL

Session ID Variable

The variable that represents the session ID of the session in which the program is running is:

&SID

Chapter 6: Interacting With Applications 67

Describe Application Sessions

ACL/E provides variables that can describe an application session. In these variables, you specify the name of the application or session. When variable substitution takes place, the variable returns a string of information about the application or session.

Session Variable

The variable that represents information about a session is:

&SESS_INF(sessionID)

■

This variable returns the following information about the session:

■

If the session is active

■

If the session is the current session

If the session is not a valid session ID

■

The application running in the session

The name of the ACL/E program running in the session (if any)

Application Variable

The variable that represents information about an application is:

&APPL_INF(applicationID)

■

This variable returns the following information about the application:

■

If the application is active

■

If the application is in a quiesced state

If the application is not defined in the Application Control Table (ACT)

If the application is an internal application

Send Data to the Application

ACL/E programs can send data directly to an application by simulating action keys.

ACL/E programs can simulate action keys such as Enter, PAn, PFn, and CLEAR. When an action key statement is executed, program execution is suspended until ACL/E receives a response from the application.

68 ACL/E Programming Guide

Receive Data from the Application

Clear the Screen

To simulate the pressing of the Clear key, which clears the screen, use:

CLEAR

Transmit Screen Data with Enter Key

To simulate the pressing of the Enter key, which transmits screen input data to the application, use:

ENTER

Transmit Screen Data with a PF Key

To simulate the pressing of a PF key, which transmits all screen input data back to the application, use the PF command. For example, to simulate pressing PF3, use:

PF 3

Simulate a PA Key

To simulate the pressing of a PA key, use the PA command. For example, to simulate pressing PA2, use:

PA 2

Receive Data from the Application

Some applications allow data to be entered from the keyboard before it sends the appropriate information to the terminal screen. In these cases, the next statement in an

ACL/E program could be executed before the data it needs is transmitted from the application. The following commands instruct your ACL/E program to wait for the appropriate information to be transmitted from the application.

Suspend Action Temporarily

You can temporarily suspend ACL/E program execution for a specified number of seconds with the WAIT command. For example, the following statement suspends execution for five seconds:

WAIT 5

Chapter 6: Interacting With Applications 69

Receive Data from the Application

Output from the application can continue to be displayed on the screen during the

"wait" period.

Wait for Data from the Application

You can also tell the program to wait for data from the application by including the following command:

WINP

You need to use this command only if output is going to come from the application before any action key statement (ENTER, CLEAR, PA, or PF) is executed.

You use the WINP statement primarily in startup ACL/E programs to ensure that these programs wait for the application's first screen or good morning message.

You can also use the WINP statement for applications that constantly generate output, such as CA-Remote and VM. In these cases, you may want to search the screen image each time the application sends data, and if it is not what you are looking for, use the

WINP command to receive the next application data.

Problems with the WINP Command

Two problems can occur with the WINP command.

■

If the application sends no data, the ACL/E program will go into an infinite wait.

■

If you use WINP to wait for data to be displayed and SEARCH to examine the data after it has been displayed, it is possible for the program to go into an endless loop.

For example, a program might have code similar to the following:

LOOP1 WINP WAIT FOR DATA FROM APPLICATION

SEARCH 'Ready' IS THE READY PROMPT DISPLAYED

BRANCH NE,LOOP1 NO, WAIT LONGER

If the string "Ready" is never sent from the application, the program will go into an endless loop waiting for it to be displayed. Even if the application sends data that the program does not use, the WINP command will tell the program to continue execution.

Unless you take measures to prevent an endless loop, the program can go into one if unexpected data is sent from the application.

Prevent an Infinite Wait

To prevent an infinite wait, specify a time-out period using the OPTION command with the TIME operand. For example, to tell the program to branch to the statement labeled

RESUME after 20 seconds of inactivity, use the following statement:

OPTION TIME=20,RESUME

70 ACL/E Programming Guide

Receive Data from the User

Prevent an Endless Loop

There are two ways that you can prevent an endless loop:

1. You can use an accumulator to count the number of times the program executes the loop. Each time the loop is executed, increment the accumulator and compare it to a value (such as 10). Then instruct the program to branch to the end of the program when the accumulator reaches the specified value.

2. You can place an OPTION statement at the beginning of the program and set the maximum number of instructions that the program can execute. For more details

on using the OPTION statement to prevent endless loops, see

Prevent Uncontrolled

Loops

(see page 62).

Wait for Specific Data from Application

The SRCHWAIT command combines the features of the SEARCH and WINP commands.

You can use the SRCHWAIT command in environments such as VM and CA-Remote, where unsolicited output arrives from the application. For example, to determine whether a VM session is displaying the "Ready" prompt, use the following statement:

SRCHWAIT 'Ready'

If the data is found or if the application is sending no more data, SRCHWAIT sets a condition code (EQ or NE) and the next statement in the program is executed.

Note: ACL/E determines whether the application will be sending more data by examining the session's SNA Bracket and Change Direction state. If the application session is "IN-BRACKET" and the application has given the "change direction indicator,"

ACL/E concludes that the application will send no more data.

Receive Data from the User

ACL/E also provides commands that allow you to create an ACL/E program that can receive input from the user.

Wait for Input

The INPUT command tells an ACL/E program to wait for input from the user. This command suspends all ACL/E operation until the program receives the input. Data entered at the INPUT statement can then be used by a SEARCHN or SEND command.

Chapter 6: Interacting With Applications 71

Receive Data from the User

Suspend the Program

You can use the PAUSE command to suspend execution of a program until the user presses an action key (Enter, Clear, PA, and PF) at the terminal. When you do this, the user can select from a menu or enter data on the application screen before the next

ACL/E program statement is executed. The user action is transmitted to the application, and execution resumes when the application responds to the user's input.

In the following program, the PAUSE command tells ACL/E to wait for the user to type a

CICS password and press the Enter key:

KEY 'LOGON CICS' Key 'LOGON CICS.'

ENTER Enter it.

SEARCH 'ENTER PASSWORD' See if CICS is responding.

BRANCH NE,END If not, quit.

PAUSE If CICS prompts with

* 'ENTER PASSWORD,'

* allow user to enter the

* password.

END STOP

Examine User Input

You may want an ACL/E program to examine the user's input before submitting it to the application. After an ACL/E program receives input from the user with the INPUT command, the SEARCHN statement can be used to examine the newly entered data.

After the data is examined, use a BRANCH statement to determine whether the data should be sent to the application. The SEND command is used to send the data to the application.

For example, the following statements determine whether the user typed the string

"HELLO, TPX." If so, the program sends the data entered by the user to the application; otherwise, the program terminates.

INPUT

SEARCHN 'HELLO, TPX'

BRANCH EQ,GO

STOP

GO SEND

STOP

72 ACL/E Programming Guide

Issue an Attention Interrupt

Examine the Last Action Key Pressed

The last action key the user pressed is represented by the variable &TAID. You can use

&TAID in a COMPARE statement to determine what the program should do based on what the user entered. The following example shows a simple program that redirects to a statement labeled SYS1 if the user pressed PF1, or to a line labeled SYS2 if the user pressed PF2.

DISPLAY MNU001

INPUT

COMPARE '&TAID','PF1'

BRANCH EQ,SYS1

COMPARE '&TAID','PF2'

BRANCH EQ,SYS2

Issue an Attention Interrupt

The following command issues an attention interrupt to the application:

ATTN

Note: The attention interrupt always goes to the application no matter how the Attn key is defined in your System Options Table.

Terminate the Application Session

The following command terminates the application session in which the ACL/E program is running:

TERMSESS

For instance, you would use this command to terminate an ACL/E logoff program when unexpected conditions arise.

Control Application Sessions with OPENGATE

If your installation uses OPENGATE to perform session setup and cleanup, you can set up control ACL/E for use by OPENGATE. Error messages issued by the control ACL/E have the prefix IENM. For more information, see the Programming Guide.

Chapter 6: Interacting With Applications 73

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen

This chapter shows you how to use ACL/E commands to see what is displayed on the current screen. This chapter also shows you how to move the cursor around on the screen.

This section contains the following topics:

Search for Data on the Current Screen

(see page 75)

Use Variables to Represent Screen Data

(see page 76)

Locate the Current Cursor Position

(see page 78)

Move the Cursor

(see page 79)

Type and Delete Data on the Screen

(see page 81)

Search for Data on the Current Screen

ACL/E provides a number of commands and variables that allow you to examine and manipulate the data that appears on the application screen.

ACL/E can search for specific data displayed on the current screen. This search capability enables a program to ensure that the correct screen is displayed before it continues.

Search for a Character String

The statements from a TSO startup ACL/E program shown below search for the string

"ENTER USERID" to determine whether the TSO signon screen is displayed. If the correct screen is displayed, the program enters the user ID and password or password phrase. If the correct screen is not displayed, the program terminates.

SEARCH 'ENTER USERID'

BRANCH EQ,TSO

STOP

TSO KEY '&USERID'

ENTER

KEY '&PSWD'

ENTER

STOP

The SEARCH command searches the screen image for the specified string. If the string is found, the SEARCH statement sets a condition code of EQ, which is used by the BRANCH statement. If the string is not found (NE), the program terminates.

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen 75

Use Variables to Represent Screen Data

Search for a Hexadecimal String

If the data you are searching for contains special characters that are not on your keyboard, you can search for them by specifying the hexadecimal value of the string (in single quotes) followed by the suffix X in the SEARCH statement. The following statement searches for the string "We love TPX!":

SEARCH 'E685409396A58540E3D7E75A'X

Note: When you use the X suffix, you must enclose the string in single quotes.

Search for Any Data

At times you might want an ACL/E program to determine whether the screen contains any data at all before proceeding to the next step. To do this, use the SEARCH command with the ANY operand. For example, the following statements use the SEARCH command to determine if the screen contains any non-null or non-blank data and prints a message if it is blank.

SEARCH ANY

BRANCH NE,BLANK

STOP

BLANK KEY 'This screen is blank'

STOP

Use Variables to Represent Screen Data

You can use ACL/E's predefined screen variables to represent the screen and the data on the screen. ACL/E looks at the screen as a grid of horizontal rows and vertical columns.

Variables describe the screen size, screen data, and cursor position in terms of rows, columns, and row/column coordinates.

76 ACL/E Programming Guide

Use Variables to Represent Screen Data

Represent Screen Size

ACL/E variables identify the number of columns on the screen, the number of rows on the screen, and the absolute screen size.

Representing the Number of Columns

The variable &SCRNCOLS represents the number of columns on the screen. For example, if the screen is 80-columns wide, the value of &SCRNCOLS is 80.

Representing the Number of Rows

The variable &SCRNROWS represents the number of rows on the screen. For example, if the screen is 24 rows long, the value of &SCRNROWS is 24.

Representing the Absolute Screen Size

The variable &SCRNSIZE represents the absolute size of the screen; that is, the total number of coordinates or character positions on the screen.

ACL/E determines the absolute screen size, in bytes, by counting each character position on the screen. For example, in an 80-column by 24-row screen, the first row contains coordinates 1 through 80, the second row contains coordinates 81 through 160, and so on, down to row 24, which contains coordinates 1841 through 1920. The value of

&SCRNSIZE would be 1920.

Represent Screen Data

ACL/E provides variables representing all data on the screen, data locations, and the data that appears at a particular location. You represent the entire screen image (that is, all data on the screen) with the variable &SCREEN.

You can use substring notation with this variable if you want to represent only a portion of the screen data. For example, to represent the ten characters beginning at position 5 on the screen, you would use the following substring notation:

&SCREEN(5,10)

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen 77

Locate the Current Cursor Position

Represent Location of the Screen Data

The variable &LOC represents the position of the screen data that is found as a result of a SEARCH statement.

For example, suppose the following statement is used in an ACL/E program:

SEARCH 'ENTER USERID'

If the statement finds the target string, the variable &LOC will contain the value of the screen position of the first character of the target string.

ACL/E also has variables that represent the column and row of the target string. These are &LOCCOL and &LOCROW. So if the string "ENTER USERID" starts in column 5 of row

2, the value of &LOC is 85 (80 in the first row and 5 in the second), the value of

&LOCCOL is 5, and the value of &LOCROW is 2.

The data from the position indicated in &LOC to the end of the field that contains the search data is &SCRNFLD. For example, the user ID field on an application screen may contain more than just the string "ENTER USERID". It may also contain other characters so that the entire field looks something like this:

ENTER USERID ====>

In this case, the value of &SCRNFLD would be all of the characters from the first character in the field (the first letter "E") to the last character in the field (the character

">").

Search the Current Field for a String

You can look for data from &LOC to the end of the field using the SEARCHF statement.

For example, the following statement determines whether the current field

(represented by the variable &SCRNFLD) contains the string "HELLO USER":

SEARCHF 'HELLO USER'

If the field contained the string "ENTER USERID" instead of "HELLO USER", this statement would return a condition code of NE.

Locate the Current Cursor Position

ACL/E provides variables that represent the row and column of the cursor position. In addition, there is a variable that represents the cursor position in respect to the absolute screen size.

78 ACL/E Programming Guide

Move the Cursor

Locate the Cursor by Row

The variable &CSRROW represents the row of the current position of the cursor. For example, if the cursor is in row 2, the value of &CSRROW is 2.

Locate the Cursor by Column

The variable &CSRCOL represents the column of the current position of the cursor. For example, if the cursor is in column 5, the value of &CSRCOL is 5.

Locate the Cursor on the Total Screen

The variable &CURSOR represents the location of the cursor with respect to the total screen size. For example, if the screen width is 80 columns, and the cursor is in column 5 of row 2, the value of &CURSOR is 85.

Move the Cursor

There are a number of ways in which you can change the position of the cursor. Below are descriptions of the various commands you can use to move the cursor around the screen.

Move Cursor Up, Down, Left, and Right

You can move the cursor in any direction using directional commands. Note that each of these commands requires an operand indicating the number of rows or columns the cursor is to be moved.

Moving the Cursor Up

To move the cursor up a specified number of rows (lines), use the UP command. For example, the following statement moves the cursor up five lines:

UP 5

The UP command simulates pressing the up-arrow key. If the cursor reaches the top of the screen, it wraps to the bottom and continues upward from there.

Moving the Cursor Down

To move the cursor down a specified number of rows (lines), use the DOWN command. For example, the following statement moves the cursor down five lines:

DOWN 5

The DOWN command simulates pressing the down-arrow key. If the cursor reaches the bottom of the screen, it wraps to the top and continues downward from there.

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen 79

Move the Cursor

Moving the Cursor Left

To move the cursor left a specified number of columns, use the LEFT command. For example, the following statement moves the cursor left five columns:

LEFT 5

The LEFT command simulates pressing the left-arrow key. If the cursor reaches the left side of the screen, it wraps to the right side and continues left from there.

Moving the Cursor Right

To move the cursor right a specified number of columns, use the RIGHT command.

For example, the following statement moves the cursor right five columns:

RIGHT 5

The RIGHT command simulates pressing the right-arrow key. If the cursor reaches the right side of the screen, it wraps to the left side and continues right from there.

Set the Cursor Position

You can position the cursor at a designated screen location using the variable CURSOR in a SET statement. For example, to move the cursor to position 10 (row 1, column 10), use:

SET CURSOR,10

Simulate the HOME Key

The HOME command simulates the pressing of the HOME key and moves the cursor directly to the first input field on the screen.

HOME

Simulate the Return Key

The NL command moves the cursor to the first input field on the next line on the screen.

This command simulates pressing the return key on your keyboard. You can specify how many lines down you want to move the cursor. For example, the following statement moves the cursor to the first input field on the fifth row (line) down from the current position:

NL 5

80 ACL/E Programming Guide

Type and Delete Data on the Screen

Simulate the Forward Tab Key

The TABF command simulates pressing the ®| (forward tab) key and moves the cursor to the next input field. You can specify how many input fields forward you want to move the cursor. For example, the following statement moves the cursor ahead five input fields:

TABF 5

The TABF command is ignored if the 3270 keyboard has automatic cursor skipping, in which case the cursor would automatically move to the next field.

The TABB command simulates pressing the back tab key and moves the cursor to the previous input field. You can specify how many input fields back you want to move the cursor. For example, the following statement moves the cursor back five input fields:

TABB 5

Note: If the cursor is in the first position of an input field, or anywhere in an output field, it will be moved backward by five input fields. Otherwise, it will be moved to the first position of the current input field, then moved backward four input fields. In either case, the cursor will always occupy position 1 of the target input field.

The TABL command moves the cursor to the first position of the last input field on the screen.

Type and Delete Data on the Screen

An ACL/E program can type and delete characters on the screen just as you do from a

3270 keyboard.

Type Data on the Screen

To type data on the screen, you must first use a statement that moves the cursor to where you want the data to be typed. Then use a KEY statement to type the data onto the screen. The data to be typed must be enclosed in quotes if it contains spaces or punctuation. For example, the following statement types the string "Good Morning":

KEY 'Good Morning'

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen 81

Type and Delete Data on the Screen

You can type characters that cannot be typed on the keyboard by using hexadecimal codes as values for the string variable followed by the suffix X; for example, the following statement types the string "We love TPX!":

KEY 'E685409396A58540E3D7E75A'X

Note: When you use the X suffix, you must enclose the string in single quotes.

Switch Into and Out of Insert Mode

After the program has typed the data on the screen, you may want to insert characters between the ones already typed. To do this, use the INSERT command. This command, which simulates pressing the INSERT key, places the virtual terminal (not the physical terminal) in INSERT mode. To take the virtual terminal out of INSERT mode, use the

RESET command. For example, the following program segment inserts the string "to be" at the current cursor position and then resets the virtual terminal.

INSERT

KEY 'to be'

RESET

Delete Data from the Screen

To delete data from the screen, you must first use a statement that moves the cursor to the data to be deleted. Then use one of the deletion statements described here, depending on the amount of data you want to delete.

Delete the Character at the Cursor Position

The DELETE command simulates pressing the DELETE key on the keyboard. Each DELETE statement deletes the character at the cursor position. After the character is deleted, the characters to the right of the cursor position shift one space to the left. Note that the DELETE command does not have an operand. If you want to delete multiple characters, you have to repeat the command or use a loop. For example, both of the following program segments delete five characters to the right of the cursor position.

A Program Repeating the Command

DELETE

82 ACL/E Programming Guide

Type and Delete Data on the Screen

A Program Using a Loop

SET A1,0

DELETE DELETE

ADD A1,1

COMPARE A1,5

BRANCH LT,DELETE

STOP

Delete Data from Cursor Position to End of the Field

The EOF command simulates pressing the EOF key and deletes all data from the cursor position to the end of the field. All characters from the cursor to the end of the field are replaced with null characters.

Replace Data in Unprotected Fields with Nulls

The ERASE command erases all data in unprotected fields on the screen. This command simulates pressing the ERASE or ERASE INPUT key and replaces all unprotected data on the screen with null characters.

Chapter 7: Working With Data on the Screen 83

Chapter 8: Defining and Manipulating

Variables

This chapter explains the different kinds of variables and how they are used in ACL/E statements. This chapter also shows you how to define your own variables to use in

ACL/E programs.

This section contains the following topics:

Variable Names

(see page 85)

Variable Concatenation

(see page 85)

Substring Notation

(see page 86)

Predefined Variables

(see page 88)

User-defined Variables

(see page 88)

Define Variables

(see page 89)

Delete Variables

(see page 91)

Variable Names

Variables are used to indicate items whose values will be determined when the program is executed. In addition to having predefined variables, ACL/E allows you to define your own variables.

ACL/E treats a string preceded by an ampersand (&) and ending with a delimiter (such as a space or period) as a variable name. If the ampersand is followed immediately by a blank character or period, then it is treated as the ampersand character (&).

ACL/E treats the eight characters immediately after the ampersand as the variable name unless it encounters a space, period, comma, slash, left parenthesis, quote, or another ampersand.

The concatenation character (a period) is used to produce one value that is the combination of the two or more variables or text strings.

Variable Concatenation

ACL/E works from left to right when resolving the value of a concatenated variable. If, however, a period is used to concatenate two values to form the name of a variable,

ACL/E evaluates the statement from right to left, instead of left to right.

Chapter 8: Defining and Manipulating Variables 85

Substring Notation

Example

Assume that the following variables have these values:

■

&A—TOUCH

■

&B—DOWN

■

&C—B

■

&AB—FIELDGOAL

The following table shows you how ACL/E will determine the value of the variables specified:

Variable What ACL/E does Resulting Value

&.A

&A.TONE

&A&B

&A.&C

Uses the value of &A TOUCH

Concatenates the ampersand character (&) with the letter "A"

Note: When a period is used to concatenate two values to form the name of a variable, ACL/E evaluates the statement from right to left, instead of left to right.

Concatenates the value of &A with the character string "TONE"

TOUCHTONE

Concatenates the value of &A with the value of

TOUCHDOWN

Concatenates the variable name &A with the value of &C (which is the letter B).

Note: When a period is used to concatenate two values to form the name of a variable, ACL/E evaluates the statement from right to left, instead of left to right.

FIELDGOAL

Substring Notation

Substring notation can be applied to any variable. The format is:

&varname(pp,nn) where &varname is the variable name, pp is the starting position (ranging from 1 to the number of characters in the string) and nn is the number of characters to be used.

86 ACL/E Programming Guide

Substring Notation

Example

The following substring notation retrieves the first three digits of the value of &USERID:

&USERID(1,3)

Substring Values

If you specify a starting position that is greater than the length of the string, ACL/E will return a null value. Also, if the number of characters you specified is greater than the number of characters after the starting position, ACL/E will truncate at the end of the string.

Example

Assume that the following variables have these values:

&A—TOUCH

&B—DOWN

&C—B

&AB—FIELDGOAL

&D(1)—EXTRA

&D(2)—POINT

The following table shows you how ACL/E will determine the value of the variables specified with substring notation:

Variable What ACL/E does Resulting

Value

&A(1,2)

&A(2,8)

&C&B(2,2)

&C(2,3)

Returns the value of the two characters in &A starting with the position 1

Returns the value of the eight characters in &A starting with position 2, but only returns four characters since there are only four characters to the right of position 2

OUCH

Returns the value of &C (which is the letter "B") followed by the value of the two characters in &B starting with position 2

BOW

Since the value of &C is only one character long, this statement returns no value null substitution

Chapter 8: Defining and Manipulating Variables 87

Predefined Variables

&D(1)(3,2) Returns the value of the two characters in the third and fourth positions of the first element of

&D(1)(2,1)&D(2) Returns the second character in the first element of &D and the contents of &D(2)

XPOINT

Predefined Variables

ACL/E provides predefined variables that can be used to represent values such as user input, the current time, and the current date.

For a description of ACL/E's predefined variables, see the appendix

Predefined Variables

(see page 157).

User-defined Variables

User-defined variables are variables you can define to represent values that you need to run a specific program. After you have defined a variable, you can assign a value to it with the SET command. There are three types of user-defined variables:

■

Persistent variables exist as long as the user has an active CA TPX session. They are accessible from any ACL/E program in any session. You define persistent variables with the UDEFINE command and delete them with the UDELETE command.

■

Transient variables exist only for the life of the ACL/E program in which they are defined. They are accessible only from the current ACL/E program and its subroutines. You define transient variables with the VDEFINE command and delete them with the VDELETE command.

Global variables are defined as CA TPX global variables. They are accessible by any

ACL/E program and remain until they are deleted by a program. You define global variables with the GDEFINE command and delete them with the GDELETE command.

88 ACL/E Programming Guide

Define Variables

Characteristics

In general, user-defined variables have the following characteristics:

■

User-defined variable names can be up to eight characters in length, not including the ampersand symbol (&); for example, &VARIABLE.

■

User-defined variables are resolved to mixed-case character data that is left-justified and stripped of trailing blanks.

■

If an undefined variable name appears as the first operand of a SET command, it is automatically defined as an uppercase transient variable.

■

If an undefined variable name appears within a quoted operand, it is resolved to a null string.

■

Values of transient variables are passed to any subroutine programs generated by the ACLPGM command.

Define Variables

You can define your own variables to represent values in an ACL/E program by using the

UDEFINE, VDEFINE, and GDEFINE commands. The DEFINE commands each have the following format:

xDEFINE 'varname',length,TYPE=type

Operand Explanations

The DEFINE commands have the following operands:

Operand Explanation

varname

length

Specifies either U, V, or G, indicating what kind of variable is being defined.

Specifies the name of the variable.

Specifies the length (in bytes) of the text string or numeric value that will be assigned to the variable. If you do not specify a length, ACL/E uses the default of eight (8).

Chapter 8: Defining and Manipulating Variables 89

Define Variables

TYPE=type Specifies the type of variable, which can be:

CHAR - Mixed case characters.

UPCHAR - Uppercase characters.

NUM - Numeric characters.

BIN - Binary characters.

HEX - Hexadecimal characters.

When you specify either a CHAR or UPCHAR variable, you can also specify NOTRUNC, which specifies that trailing blanks in the variable will not be truncated when the variable is resolved.

Example

Usage Notes

To define a transient variable that will consist entirely of uppercase characters, contain up to 10 characters and trailing blanks, use the following command:

VDEFINE CUSTNAME,10,TYPE=UPCHAR,NOTRUNC

The following usage notes apply:

1. If you use two VDEFINE, UDEFINE or GDEFINE statements in a program to define the same variable name, the second statement will delete the first variable before defining it a second time. As a result, any value assigned to the variable will be lost.

2. If you use a VDEFINE statement and a UDEFINE statement to define the same variable name in a program, a SET statement for that variable will update only the variable defined with VDEFINE. As a result, you will not be able to pass the value of the variable to another ACL/E program.

Important! Be careful when defining global variables with GDEFINE. These variables will persist after the ACL/E program has executed and will not be deleted except by an explicit GDELETE statement.

90 ACL/E Programming Guide

Delete Variables

When you use UDEFINE, VDEFINE, or GDEFINE to define a variable, you should always be sure to delete the variable when you no longer need the value.

Use the appropriate DELETE command to delete the variable (UDELETE, VDELETE, or

GDELETE).

Important! Be careful to delete variables defined with UDEFINE or GDEFINE, because these variables will persist after the ACL/E program finishes executing.

For example, the following statement deletes the variable defined in the example in the previous section:

VDELETE CUSTNAME

Chapter 8: Defining and Manipulating Variables 91

Chapter 9: Displaying an Alternate Screen

Image

This chapter shows you the ACL/E commands and statements used to define and display alternate screen images.

ACL/E offers two ways to display alternate screen images:

■

Overlay an application screen with one or more lines of data specified in an ACL/E program.

■

Display a screen image generated from a panel definition.

This section contains the following topics:

Overlay the Current Screen

(see page 93)

Display Alternate Screen

(see page 94)

Overlay the Current Screen

To overlay the current screen image with a single string of data, you use the OUTPUT command. Each time a new OUTPUT statement is encountered, the screen is refreshed so that the data displayed by the previous statement disappears.

Format of the OUTPUT Command

The OUTPUT command has the following format:

OUTPUT 'text string',r/c where 'text string' is the text you want to display on the screen, r is the row you want the data to be displayed on, and c is the column in which the text will begin.

The following format is also acceptable:

OUTPUT 'text string',p where p is the absolute screen position of the starting point.

Chapter 9: Displaying an Alternate Screen Image 93

Display Alternate Screen

Example of the OUTPUT Command

Either of the following statements will display the string "Start here" starting in row 2, column 1 of an 80-column screen:

OUTPUT 'Start here',2/1 or

OUTPUT 'Start here',81

Note: If you specify neither r/c nor p, the data will be displayed starting at the screen position represented by the variable &LOC.

Display Multiple Lines of Data

To display multiple lines of data on a single screen, use the OUTPUTC statement after the OUTPUT statement. You must include the cursor positions so that the second line of text is not typed over the first.

The OUTPUTC command functions in the same manner as OUTPUT, but does not refresh an existing alternate screen image.

Display Alternate Screen

Alternate screen images are generated from panels stored in a panel's data set. To display an alternate screen image, use the DISPLAY command with the member containing the panel in the first operand position.

The following statement displays the screen from the panel stored in member

NEWSCRN:

DISPLAY NEWSCRN

Position the Cursor at a Field

To position the cursor at a particular field in the alternate screen, specify the variable name associated with the field in the second operand position.

The following statement positions the cursor in the NAME field of the screen NEWSCRN:

DISPLAY NEWSCRN,NAME

94 ACL/E Programming Guide

Display Alternate Screen

Identify the Cursor Position

The following ACL/E variables represent the location of the cursor on an alternate screen in terms of its row, column, and row/column coordinate:

Locating the Cursor by Row

The variable &TCSRROW represents the row in which the cursor is positioned on an alternate screen. For example, if the cursor is in row 2, the value of &TCSRROW is 2.

Locating the Cursor by Column

The variable &TCSRCOL represents the column in which the cursor is positioned on an alternate screen. For example, if the cursor is in column 5, the value of

&TCSRCOL is 5.

Locating the Cursor on the Total Screen

The variable &TCURSOR represents the position of the cursor in relation to the absolute screen size. For example, if the cursor is in row 2, column 5 on a screen that is 80 columns wide, the value of &TCURSOR is 85.

Chapter 9: Displaying an Alternate Screen Image 95

Chapter 10: Combining Session Information

This chapter discusses the commands used to enable ACL/E programs to coordinate interaction with multiple application sessions.

This section contains the following topics:

Use Shared Variables

(see page 97)

Use Global Variables

(see page 98)

Wait for Notification from Scheduled Programs

(see page 98)

Use Shared Variables

You can combine information from several application sessions into one customized screen using ACL/E and panels, and you can define shared variables for passing information between sessions. In addition, you can suspend execution of the main program pending notification from the other programs.

You can have an ACL/E program that requires information from two or more application sessions. ACL/E allows you to set up "persistent" variables that retain their value even if you switch sessions.

Program That Copies the Account Number

The following program defines the variable ACNTNUM in the current session, assigns it a value taken from the current screen, and calls the second ACL/E program to run in another session:

******* Program name: ACCOUNT1 *******

UDEFINE ACNTNUM,6 define account number variable

SET ACNTNUM,&SCREEN(35,6) set account number

ACLPGM T2,ACCOUNT2 call second program

Program That Types the Account Number in Another Session

The following program uses the same variable to type the account number on the third column of the fifth row on the screen:

******* Program name: ACCOUNT2 *******

SET CURSOR,5/3 set the cursor position

KEY &ACNTNUM type the account number

UDELETE ACNTNUM delete the variable

Chapter 10: Combining Session Information 97

Use Global Variables

You may want to define information that can be used by any user's ACL/E programs in any session and will remain until deleted by a program. ACL/E allows you to create global variables that are defined in the symbol table. These variables can be used by any program running on that CA TPX until deleted. Global variables are defined with the

GDEFINE command and deleted with the GDELETE command.

Wait for Notification from Scheduled Programs

Often, a main ACL/E program that starts several programs, each executing in a different session, needs to wait for results from those programs. The SUSPEND command causes the main ACL/E to be suspended until it receives notification that the other programs have completed their tasks.

Examples

Suppose that you have an ACL/E program that executes in an application session called

CUSTOMER. This program calls three other ACL/E programs to query different customer databases. To suspend the calling ACL/E program until it receives notification from all three other programs, you would include the following statement in the calling program:

SUSPEND 3

To tell each of the three called ACL/E programs to report back to the calling ACL/E in the

CUSTOMER session, you would include the following statement in each called program:

NOTIFY CUSTOMER

When the calling program receives the number of notifications specified in the SUSPEND statement, it continues by executing the next statement.

98 ACL/E Programming Guide

Appendix A: Programming Tips

This appendix gives you some helpful tips for programming with ACL/E. You can use this information to solve problems that you may encounter in your ACL/E programs, or to make your ACL/E programs more efficient.

This section contains the following topics:

Define and Delete Variables

(see page 99)

Position the Cursor

(see page 100)

Switch Sessions in an ACL/E Program

(see page 100)

Manage Errors

(see page 101)

Write a Signon Program for Multiple Applications

(see page 102)

Allow Other Work to be Dispatched

(see page 102)

Prevent VTAM Buffers from Overloading

(see page 103)

TPXDEMO Session

(see page 104)

Define and Delete Variables

This section discusses some common situations with user-defined variables and also shows you another way to define variables in an ACL/E program.

ACL/E User-defined Variables

A thorough understanding of how ACL/E user-defined variables work will help you to use them more efficiently.

1. If you use a UDEFINE statement to define a variable and then use a VDEFINE statement to define a variable with the same name, a SET statement will update only the variable defined with the VDEFINE statement. Therefore, if the variable is used in another ACL/E program, the value will not be passed to the called program.

2. If you use a GDEFINE statement to define a variable and then use a UDEFINE statement to define a variable with the same name, a SET statement will update only the variable defined with the UDEFINE statement. The new value will not be passed to the CA TPX global symbol table.

3. If you use a VDEFINE statement to define a variable and call another ACL/E program that uses a VDEFINE statement to define the same variable, the two variables will be treated as separate variables.

If you want to pass the value of a variable to a called program, use a UDEFINE or

GDEFINE statement to define the variable.

Appendix A: Programming Tips 99

Position the Cursor

Define Variable with a SET Statement

You can use a SET statement to define a variable in an ACL/E program. The length of a variable defined with a SET statement is set to the length of the initial value of the variable. You can also clear the variable by assigning it a null value.

For example, the following statements define a variable and give it a null value:

SET AVAR,'12345678' CREATE A VARIABLE WITH LENGTH 8

* AND A VALUE OF '12345678'

SET AVAR,'' RESET THE VALUE OF AVAR TO NULLS

Define Variable for Uppercase Data

You can specify a variable with the UPCHAR attribute and use that variable to convert data to uppercase. For example, the following program converts the lower case data contained in a variable to uppercase:

VDEFINE LOWERVAR,10

VDEFINE UPPERVAR,10,TYPE=UPCHAR

SET LOWERVAR,'lower case'

KEY 'Value = &LOWERVAR'

INPUT

CLEAR

SET UPPERVAR,&LOWERVAR

SET LOWERVAR,&UPPERVAR

KEY 'Value = &LOWERVAR'

INPUT

CLEAR

Position the Cursor

After locating a string on the screen with a SEARCH statement, you can position the cursor in the input field immediately following it by using the &LOC variable and a TABF statement. &LOC contains the row-column coordinates of the first position of the string.

The following statements move the cursor to the input field following the string

"ACCOUNT NUMBER":

SEARCH 'ACCOUNT NUMBER' FIND 'ACCOUNT NUMBER' ON THE SCREEN

SET CURSOR,&LOC MOVE THE CURSOR TO THE TEXT

TABF 1 TAB TO THE NEXT INPUT FIELD

Switch Sessions in an ACL/E Program

When activating a session from an ACL/E program, you should use a WAIT command to give the application time to start before you switch to the new session.

100 ACL/E Programming Guide

Manage Errors

For example, the following statements activate the session TSO, wait for it to start, and switch to the new session:

COMMAND 'A TSO' ACTIVATE THE TSO SESSION

WAIT 1 GIVE THE SESSION TIME TO START

COMMAND 'TSO' SWITCH TO THE TSO SESSION

ZCONN Variable

The variable ZCONN contains the session ID of the current session. You can use this variable to make sure the session switch was successful. For example, the following statements switch to the session VM2 and then check to make sure the session switch was successful before starting an ACL/E program:

COMMAND 'VM2' SWITCH TO THE VM APPLICATION

WAIT 1 GIVE THE SESSION TIME TO START

COMPARE '&ZCONN','VM2' DID WE SWITCH SESSIONS?

BRANCH NE,FAILED IF NOT, STOP THE PROGRAM

COMMAND 'S VM2 VMACL' START PROGRAM 'VMACL' IN VM2

FAILED STOP

Manage Errors

You may want an ACL/E program to send a copy of the screen to the Log when an error occurs so that the programmer can easily see what was going on when the error occurred.

The following statements send the screen to the Log when the search string is not found:

SEARCH 'xxx' SEARCH FOR DATA

BRANCH NE,ERROR1 IF NOT FOUND, PRINT THE SCREEN

...

ERROR1 COMMAND 'P * LOG' PRINT SCREEN TO TPX LOG

WAIT 1 GIVE 'P' COMMAND TIME TO EXECUTE

...

Display an Error Message

You also can use an OUTPUT statement to display an error message on the screen.

Follow the OUTPUT statement with an INPUT command to "freeze" the error message on the terminal until the user presses an action key.

OUTPUT 'Can''t go on',2/16 DISPLAY ERROR MESSAGE ON SCREEN

INPUT WAIT FOR ACTION KEY

Appendix A: Programming Tips 101

Write a Signon Program for Multiple Applications

Display Error Message with OPTION Command

If an ACL/E processing error occurs, you can use an OPTION command to continue execution at a specified label with a RESUME command. The error code and message will be saved in the predefined variables &ERR_RC and &ERR_MSG.

You could use the OPTION command to display an error message:

OPTION ERROR,ERROR1

...

ERROR1 RESUME

OUTPUT 'ACL/E Error',2/16 ANNOUNCE ERROR

OUTPUTC '&ERR_MSG',3/16 DISPLAY ERROR MESSAGE ON SCREEN

INPUT WAIT FOR ACTION KEY

...

Write a Signon Program for Multiple Applications

You can create one signon program to be used with multiple applications. The following code would execute the appropriate statements to sign on to an application:

OPTION TERM,ON ALLOW USER TO SEE ACTION

SCAN &SESS_INF(&SID),'APPL=CICS' IS IT A CICS APPLICATION

BRANCH NE,IMSAPPL NO, IT'S AN IMS

OPTION TERM,OFF DO NOT DISPLAY ACTIVITY

WINP WAIT FOR CICS GOOD

... MESSAGE, SIGNON

... STATEMENTS, ETC.

IMSAPPL etc. PROCESS IMS SIGNON, ETC.

Allow Other Work to be Dispatched

ACL/E programs that perform a tedious or redundant task continue to run without stopping until the entire task is completed. If there are no breaks in the ACL/E processing, CA TPX processes the statements as fast as the system allows and work from other users might not be dispatched until the program stops.

To prevent this, use a WAIT command to periodically interrupt the program, possibly once per iteration of a loop, to allow other work to be dispatched. Other commands that relinquish control are ENTER, PF, PA, INPUT, PAUSE, SEND, and SUSPEND.

A runaway limit can be set for a program to limit the number of times a loop can be

executed. See

Prevent Uncontrolled Loops

(see page 62).

102 ACL/E Programming Guide

Prevent VTAM Buffers from Overloading

Sample Program

The following sample program uses a WAIT command to allow other work to be dispatched.

SRCHWAIT 'EDIT --- ' AT PDS MEMBER LIST?

BRANCH NE,STOP IF NOT, STOP

SET A1,&CURSOR NOTE CURSOR LOCATION

GO TABF 2 TAB 2 LINES

COMPARE A1,&CURSOR CURSOR AT HOME POSITION?

BRANCH EQ,STOP YES, END OF LIST

KEY 'S' SELECT MEMBER

ENTER

CHG KEY 'C ''*'' ''$'' ALL' CHANGE ALL * TO $

ENTER

PF 3 SAVE CHANGE

WAIT 1 ALLOW OTHER WORK TO DISPATCH

BRANCH ANY,GO PROCESS NEXT MEMBER

STOP STOP

Prevent VTAM Buffers from Overloading

ACL/E programs that are written to perform a repetitive task may frequently display redundant data on the screen. A program that updates the screen more quickly than

VTAM can deliver the data to the screen can cause the screen to flicker and overload the VTAM buffers. If the program does not have PAUSE or INPUT statements to request data from the user, the data most likely does not need to be displayed on the screen.

Commands to Use

If the application image is currently displayed on the screen, commands that send a change to the screen include DELETE, DOWN, EOF, HOME, KEY, LEFT, NL, RIGHT, SET

CURSOR, TABB, TABF, TABL, OPTION TERM/OFF, and UP. If an alternate screen image is displayed, the OUTPUT and OUTPUTC commands also update the screen.

Appendix A: Programming Tips 103

TPXDEMO Session

Sample Program

To prevent overloading of the VTAM buffers, place an OPTION TERM,OFF statement at an appropriate place in the program.

OPTION TERM,OFF DO NOT DISPLAY ACTION

SRCHWAIT 'EDIT --- ' AT PDS MEMBER LIST?

BRANCH NE,STOP IF NOT, STOP

SET A1,&CURSOR NOTE CURSOR LOCATION

GO TABF 2 TAB 2 LINES

COMPARE A1,&CURSOR CURSOR AT HOME POSITION?

BRANCH EQ,STOP YES, END OF LIST

KEY 'S' SELECT MEMBER

ENTER

CHG KEY 'C ''*'' ''$'' ALL' CHANGE ALL * TO $

ENTER

PF 3 SAVE CHANGE

WAIT 1 ALLOW OTHER WORK TO DISPATCH

BRANCH ANY,GO PROCESS NEXT MEMBER

STOP STOP

TPXDEMO Session

TPXDEMO is a special CA TPX internal application. Its sole purpose is to serve as a base from which to display panels or run ACL/E programs. It should be defined as type TPX in the Application Characteristics Table (ACT).

When you sign on to a TPXDEMO session, you are greeted by a standard panel

(TEN0062). The panel consists of a command line and a brief description.

Possible Uses

This application has many uses in ACL/E:

■

Any facility built around fixed screen layouts, such as a tutorial, can be accessed as a session on the Menu by using a signon ACL/E program. If such a tutorial relates to an application system, it can be instantly accessed by the end user while working in the application.

■

By making the TPXDEMO application the first session on the CA TPX Menu and setting it to start at logon, an initial set-up ACL/E program can be performed.

■

You can use the TPXDEMO application as a way of allowing users to choose an initial

application from the panel, as shown in

Specifying an Initial Application from the

Logo Panel

(see page 105) in this chapter.

You can use the TPXDEMO application in a program allowing users to use PF3 to log

off from the Menu, as shown in

Logging Off with PF3

(see page 105) in this chapter.

104 ACL/E Programming Guide

TPXDEMO Session

Specify Initial Application from the Logo Panel

Some installations must allow users to choose the initial application when signing on at the Logo panel. To do this:

1. Define a user variable on the Logo panel to contain the initial session ID.

Alternatively, use the Account field and change the label on the panel definition.

2. Define a TPXDEMO session as the first session on the Menu, and specify it as invisible. Set "Display Menu" to N for the user.

3. Use the following ACL/E program as the signon program for TPXDEMO. It assumes that the "Account" field of the Logo panel is being used to contain the session ID.

OPTION TERM,OFF HIDE FROM USER

COMPARE '&SNACCTV',' ' ANY APPL SELECTED?

BRANCH EQ,EXIT IF NOT, SHOW MENU

COMMAND 'A &SNACCTV' ACTIVATE IT IF NECESSARY

WAIT 2 LET IT COME UP

COMMAND '&SNACCTV' SWITCH TO IT

EXIT KEY 'END' END TPXDEMO

ENTER

WAIT 3 GIVE IT TIME TO SWITCH

The final wait is coded to ensure that the session switch occurs before the ACL/E program ends, to prevent the TPXDEMO screen image from being sent to the terminal.

It will not affect the timing of the process.

Log Off with PF3

You can use the TPXDEMO application to allow users to log off from the Menu by pressing PF3. Define a session using TPXDEMO with a session key of PF3. This session could be named LOGOFF and appear on the menu or could be made invisible.

Use this ACL/E program as a signon program for the LOGOFF session:

OPTION TERM,OFF HIDE FROM USER

SIGNOFF PERFORM /F

WINP GET PANEL

KEY 'END' END TPXDEMO

ENTER

Appendix A: Programming Tips 105

Appendix B: Sample Programs

This appendix contains some sample programs that you may find useful. These programs can be copied almost verbatim, with only minor changes such as session IDs or program names.

This section contains the following topics:

A Cursor Sensitive Help Program

(see page 107)

A Program That Processes PDS Members

(see page 109)

A Program That Prints a PDS Member from ISPF Edit or Browse

(see page 110)

A Program That Signs the User off CA TPX

(see page 110)

A Program That Reassigns PF Keys

(see page 111)

A Program That Submits an Action Key

(see page 111)

A Program That Displays the User ID and Terminal ID

(see page 112)

A Program That Monitors Storage Statistics

(see page 112)

A Cursor Sensitive Help Program

You can use ACL/E to create a program that displays cursor sensitive help for an application that does not have its own help facility. The code provided here shows the three different parts of a help program. Your help program will require much more code, but the basic principles of a help program are provided here.

Program That Waits for the User to Select Help

In the following program, PF1 is the HELP key. You can use any action key as the help key, but it should be a key that is not used by the application. The following code passes all input from the terminal directly to the application until the user presses PF1. When the user presses PF1, the ACL/E help program (HELPACL) is invoked.

LOOP INPUT WAIT FOR AN ACTION KEY

COMPARE '&TAID','PF1' DID THE USER PRESS PF1?

BRANCH NE,SKIP IF NOT, SEND IT TO THE APPL

ACLPGM HELPACL IF PF1, INVOKE HELP PROGRAM

SKIP SEND SEND ACTION KEY TO APPLICATION

BRANCH ANY,LOOP GO BACK AND WAIT FOR ANOTHER

Appendix B: Sample Programs 107

A Cursor Sensitive Help Program

Program That Finds the Screen ID

The following help program determines what screen is currently displayed so that the appropriate help panel can be provided. The program looks for an application identifier that is typically found in a specific location. In this example, we assume that the identifier starts at position two of the first line and is five characters long.

APPHELP COMPARE &SCREEN(2,5),'PANEL' IS THE ID THERE?

BRANCH NE,SKIPIT IF NOT, KEEP PROCESSING INPUT

ACLPGM UHP&SCREEN(7,3) START THE APPROPRIATE ACLPGM

SKIPIT INPUT ACCEPT INPUT FROM THE USER AND

SEND PASS IT TO THE APPLICATION

BRANCH ANY,APPHELP KEEP CHECKING THE SCREEN

Program That Displays the Help Screens

The following help program uses the DISPLAY command to present a panel you have defined in the panel library. You can make the help cursor sensitive by checking the value of &CURSOR. In this program, there are two help panels for general areas of the screen: UH001 for cursor positions 1 to 160 and UH001A for cursor positions 161 to 240.

There are also field specific help panels for cursor positions 320 and 332. When the user is finished with a help panel, the program redisplays the application screen and invokes the program that monitors the user's input for PF1.

UHP001 SET A1,&CURSOR NOTE CURRENT CURSOR POSITION

COMPARE A1,160 CURSOR IN POS 160 OR LESS?

BRANCH LE,GENHELP GET GENERAL HELP SCREEN

COMPARE A1,240 CURSOR IN POS 240 OR LESS?

BRANCH LE,HELPA GET HELP FOR SECTION A

COMPARE A1,320 CURSOR IN POSITION 320?

BRANCH EQ,HELPB GET HELP FOR FIELD B

COMPARE A1,332 CURSOR IN POSITION 332?

BRANCH EQ,HELPC GET HELP FOR FIELD C

GENHELP DISPLAY UH001 DISPLAY GENERAL HELP PANEL

BRANCH ANY,INP GO AND WAIT FOR INPUT

HELPA DISPLAY UH001A DISPLAY HELP FOR SECTION A

BRANCH ANY,INP GO AND WAIT FOR INPUT

HELPB DISPLAY UH001B DISPLAY HELP FOR FIELD B

BRANCH ANY,INP GO AND WAIT FOR INPUT

HELPC DISPLAY UH001C DISPLAY HELP FOR FIELD C

BRANCH ANY,INP GO AND WAIT FOR INPUT

INP INPUT WAIT FOR USER TO PRESS ACTION KEY

OPTION IMAGE,APPL REDISPLAY APPLICATION SCREEN

BRANCH ANY,CONTINUE ...

108 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Processes PDS Members

You can use the following program to automate a tedious and repetitive task involving the members of a PDS. This program selects each member, processes the changes, and stops when it has reached the end of the list.

SEARCH 'PRIMARY OPTION MENU' START ACL FROM ISPF

BRANCH NE,DONE1 NOT IN ISPF, STOP

KEY '2' SELECT EDIT

ENTER

HOME PUT CURSOR IN 1ST INPUT FIELD

TABF 8 TAB TO DATA SET NAME

KEY 'data set name' KEY NAME OF PDS

ENTER

SET A1,&CURSOR SET HOME CURSOR LOCATION

LOOP TABF 1 TAB TO PDS MEMBER NAME

COMPARE A1,&CURSOR CURSOR AT COMMAND LINE?

BRANCH EQ,DONE2 YES, FINISHED THE LIST

KEY 'S' NO, SELECT THE MEMBER

ENTER

C '''???''' '''&&&''' ALL MAKE CHANGES TO MEMBER

PF 3

BRANCH ANY,LOOP GO TO NEXT MEMBER

DONE1 HOME

KEY 'NOT IN ISPF PRIMARY' MUST START ACL IN ISPF

DONE2 STOP

Appendix B: Sample Programs 109

A Program That Prints a PDS Member from ISPF Edit or Browse

The following ACL/E program will generate a quick print request of a PDS member from

ISPF edit or browse:

OPTION FLOW,OFF

OPTION TERM,ON

HOME PUT CURSOR IN COMMAND LINE

UP 1 LOCATE START OF THE

LEFT 3 DATA SET NAME

SET A1,&CURSOR NOTE ITS LOCATION

SET LOC,&CURSOR SET LOC VARIABLE FOR SEARCHF

SEARCHF ')' LOOK FOR PAREN IN CURRENT FIELD

BRANCH NE,NOMEMBER IF NOT FOUND, END PROGRAM

SET A2,&LOC SET A2 TO LOCATION OF RIGHT PAREN

SUB A2,A1 SET A2 TO LENGTH UP TO RIGHT PAREN

ADD A2,1 ADD 1 FOR THE RIGHT PAREN

HOME PUT CURSOR ON THE COMMAND LINE

KEY 'TSO PRINTO ''&SCREEN(&A1,&A2)'''

ENTER PRINT THE MEMBER

STOP

NOMEMBR OUTPUT 'MEMBER NAME NOT SPECFIED',2/16

STOP PRINT ERROR MESSAGE AND STOP

A Program That Signs the User off CA TPX

This program logs a user off all of the active sessions and signs the user off at the end of the day. The program executes a termination ACL/E program for each active session and then signs the user off CA TPX.

Note: This program is redundant if you have already specified termination ACL/E programs for all of a user's sessions to execute when the user issues the "K" or "F" command.

OPTION TERM,OFF END OF DAY, NO NEED TO WATCH

ACLPGM T1,TOFF HAVE ACLPGM TOFF LOGOFF TSO 1

ACLPGM T3,TOFF HAVE ACLPGM TOFF LOGOFF TSO 3

ACLPGM CICST,CICSOFF HAVE ACLPGM CICSOFF LOGOFF CICS

ACLPGM IMSP,IMSOFF HAVE ACLPGM IMSOFF LOGOFF IMSPROD

... etc.

SIGNOFF SIGN USER OFF TPX

STOP

110 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Reassigns PF Keys

You can use the variable &TAID to change user input for an application that uses non-standard PF keys. The following program displays a customized panel with the standard PF key values, accepts the user's input, and changes the &TAID entered by the user to one that the application accepts.

DISPLAY CUSTMPNL DISPLAY CUSTOMIZED PANEL

INPUT WAIT FOR USER ACTION

COMPARE &TAID,'PF1' WAS PF1 ENTERED?

BRANCH EQ,HELP YES, USER WANTS HELP

COMPARE &TAID,'PF3' WAS PF3 ENTERED?

BRANCH EQ,END YES, USER WANTS TO END

COMPARE &TAID,'PF7' WAS PF7 ENTERED?

BRANCH EQ,NEXT YES, USER WANTS NEXT SCREEN

COMPARE &TAID,'PF8' WAS PF8 ENTERED?

BRANCH EQ,PREV YES, USER WANTS PREVIOUS SCREEN

...

HELP PF 9 SEND PF9 INSTEAD OF PF1

BRANCH ANY,RETURN

END PF 12 SEND PF12 INSTEAD OF PF3

BRANCH ANY,RETURN

NEXT PF 11 SEND PF11 INSTEAD OF PF7

BRANCH ANY,RETURN

PREV PF 10 SEND PF10 INSTEAD OF PF8

BRANCH ANY,RETURN

...

A Program That Submits an Action Key

If you have users who work from terminals that do not have some action keys, such as

CLEAR or PA keys, you can write an ACL/E program to pass the key to the application as if the user had pressed the key on the keyboard.

Program That Submits the CLEAR Key

This program passes the CLEAR key to the application:

CLEAR SUBMIT THE CLEAR KEY

STOP

Appendix B: Sample Programs 111

A Program That Displays the User ID and Terminal ID

Program That Submits the PA3 Key

This program passes the PA3 key to the application:

PA 3 SUBMIT THE PA3 KEY

STOP

A Program That Displays the User ID and Terminal ID

A possible name for this ACL/E program is "WHO". The program displays the current user ID and terminal ID on the terminal to aid in answering Help Desk questions.

OPTION TERM,ON

HOME

KEY 'YOU ARE &USERID AT &NETNAME'

STOP

A Program That Monitors Storage Statistics

This program can be set up to continuously run in TPXOPER and take storage statistics periodically and write them to the Log. These statistics might then be used to gather data to make tuning decisions.

OPTION MAXI,0 NO LIMIT TO EXECUTION

OPTION TERM,ON

LOOP KEY 'D STOR' DISPLAY STORAGE BELOW THE LINE

ENTER

COMMAND 'P * LOG' SEND RESULT TO TPX LOG

WAIT 4

KEY 'D STORXA' DISPLAY STORAGE ABOVE THE LINE

ENTER

COMMAND 'P * LOG' SEND RESULT TO TPX LOG

WAIT 1800 WAIT 30 MINUTES

BRANCH ANY,LOOP GET NEW STORAGE STATISTICS

112 ACL/E Programming Guide

Appendix C: Actions and Commands

This appendix lists the actions that you can perform in an ACL/E program and the commands that you use to do so. Each table in the appendix contains actions that perform the same type of function.

This section contains the following topics:

To Manipulate and Examine the Screen Image

(see page 113)

To Move the Cursor

(see page 114)

To Transmit to the Application

(see page 114)

To Control the ACL/E Program's Execution

(see page 115)

To Perform Calculations and Logical Operations

(see page 115)

To Issue Commands and Use Services

(see page 116)

To Help Troubleshoot an ACL/E Program

(see page 116)

To Define and Delete Variables

(see page 116)

To Display an Alternate Screen Image

(see page 117)

To Integrate Intra-Session ACL/E Execution

(see page 117)

To Manipulate and Examine the Screen Image

Action Command

Delete a character from the virtual screen.

Erase to the end of a field.

Clear all input fields.

Type text on the virtual screen.

Put the virtual terminal in insert mode.

Take the virtual terminal out of insert mode.

Search the virtual screen image for 'string'.

Search the current field from &LOC for 'string'.

Search new data for 'string' before sending it to the application.

DELETE

EOF

ERASE

KEY

INSERT

RESET

SEARCHF

SEARCHN

Operands

'string' [C|X]

'string'

Appendix C: Actions and Commands 113

To Move the Cursor

Action

Move the cursor up n lines.

Move the cursor down n lines.

Move the cursor left n columns.

Command

DOWN

LEFT

Move the cursor right n columns.

Set the cursor position at screen position n or row/column n/n.

RIGHT

SET

Move the cursor to the first input field on the screen. HOME

Position the cursor at the first input field of the nth row from the current position. Rows without an input field are not counted.

Move the cursor n input fields forward.

Move the cursor n input fields back.

TABF

TABB

Move the cursor to the last input field on the screen. TABL

Operands

CURSOR,[n[/n

]]

To Transmit to the Application

Action

Send an ATTENTION to the application.

Clear the virtual screen image and send the CLEAR key to the application.

Transmit modified data fields to the application.

Transmit modified fields with the program function key n.

Transmit program attention key n.

Transmit modified data with the current value of &TAID.

Comman d

Operands

ATTN

CLEAR

ENTER

SEND

114 ACL/E Programming Guide

To Control the ACL/E Program's Execution

Action Command Operands

Invoke another ACL/E program. ACLPGM

INPUT

BRANCH

OPTION

[sessionID,]aclpgm-n

ame

Receive input from the terminal.

Branch to label on condition.

Set option option

condition,label

{option,value}

Stop the ACL/E program to let the user enter data. PAUSE

Terminate execution of this ACL/E program. STOP

Terminate the application session immediately. TERMSESS

Wait n seconds. WAIT n

Search for 'string' and wait if it is not found or if application will not be sending more data.

SRCHWAIT 'string'

To Perform Calculations and Logical Operations

Action Comman d

Operands

Set the value of an accumulator or a variable.

Add an accumulator or an integer to an accumulator.

SET

ADD

Subtract an accumulator or an integer from an accumulator.

SUB

Compare an accumulator or a string with an accumulator, an integer, or a string, and set a condition code.

COMPAR

Search a string for another string and set a condition code.

SCAN

{accumulator,value} {variable,

value}

{accumulator,accumulator}

{accumulator,integer}

{accumulator,accumulator}

{accumulator,integer}

{accumulator,accumulator}

{accumulator,n}

{accumulator,string}

{string,accumulator} {string,n}

{string,string}

{string1,string2}

Appendix C: Actions and Commands 115

To Issue Commands and Use Services

Action

Issue a command 'string'.

Command

COMMAND

Sign the user off (as if a /F command was issued). SIGNOFF

Log the terminal off (as if a /K command was issued).

LOGOFF

To Help Troubleshoot an ACL/E Program

Action

Write a message in the log specified in the LOG DD statement of the startup procedure.

Continue execution of program at specified label and save error message and return code in variables.

Display the data flow between the application session and the ACL/E program on the terminal screen.

Record the executed statements in the Message

Log.

Command

MSG

OPTION

To Define and Delete Variables

Action

Define CA-TPX-level (global) variables.

Delete CA-TPX-level (global) variables.

Define user-level (persistent) variables.

Delete user-level (persistent) variables.

Define ACL/E-level (transient) variables.

Delete ACLE-level (transient) variables.

Command

GDEFINE

GDELETE

UDEFINE

UDELETE

VDEFINE

VDELETE

Operands

'string'

Operands

'message'

ERROR,label

TERM,ON

FLOW,ON

Operands

variable,n,TYPE=typ

variable

variable,n,TYPE=typ

variable

variable,n,TYPE=typ

variable

116 ACL/E Programming Guide

To Display an Alternate Screen Image

Action

Set the value of a variable.

Command

SET

Operands

variable,n

To Display an Alternate Screen Image

Action Comman d

Operands

Display the panel from 'member'. DISPLAY member[,cursor-varia

ble]

Display composite of application image and output

'string'.

OUTPUT 'string'

Continue displaying additional output 'string'. OUTPUTC 'string'

Remove the alternate screen image displayed with

DISPLAY, OUTPUT, or OUTPUTC and redisplay the application image.

OPTION IMAGE,APPL

To Integrate Intra-Session ACL/E Execution

Action Command Operands

Notify the main program executing in 'sessionID' of the scheduled program completion.

NOTIFY sessionID

SUSPEND n Suspend execution of the main program until notification is received from all n scheduled programs.

Appendix C: Actions and Commands 117

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CA TPX™ Session Management

ACL/E Programming Guide

Release 5.4

CA Technologies Product References

Contact CA Technologies

http://ca.com/support

http://ca.com/docs

Contents

Contents 5

6 ACL/E Programming Guide

Contents 7

8 ACL/E Programming Guide

Contents 9

10 ACL/E Programming Guide

Contents 11

12 ACL/E Programming Guide

Contents 13

14 ACL/E Programming Guide

Chapter 1: ACL/E Overview

What Is ACL/E?

What ACL/E Commands Can Do

Chapter 1: ACL/E Overview 15

CB0VSCRI Library

CB0VSCRI Library

Prerequisites

Conventions Used In This Guide

16 ACL/E Programming Guide

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics

Statements

Purpose

Components

Commands

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 17

Statements

Operands

Labels

18 ACL/E Programming Guide

Strings

Comments

Strings

Simple Strings

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 19

Accumulators

Complex Strings

Numeric Strings

Variable Strings

Accumulators

Condition Codes

20 ACL/E Programming Guide

Example

Condition Codes

Chapter 2: Syntax and Semantics 21

Chapter 3: Tutorial

Introduction

Chapter 3: Tutorial 23

Create, Store, Start, and Stop ACL/E Programs

Create, Store, Start, and Stop ACL/E Programs

Start ACL/E Program

Stop ACL/E Program

24 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Says Hello

A Program That Says Hello

Explanation

KEY Statement

STOP Command

Chapter 3: Tutorial 25

A Program That Greets You by User ID

Exercise

A Program That Greets You by User ID

Sample Program

Explanation

26 ACL/E Programming Guide

A Program That Greets You by User ID

DOWN Statement

KEY Command

Exercise

Chapter 3: Tutorial 27

A Program That Repeats a String

A Program That Repeats a String

Sample Program