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bobby_dreamer

Little mainframe shortcuts

mainframe2 min read

# 10x Productive Mainframe User Experience

Updated on 02/April/2020

PF Keys
Its better when it is switched off

  • PFSHOW OFF - Doesn't show function keys at the bottom of the screen. You get more two lines
  • PFSHOW ON - Shows the function keys

F2
By default, splits the screen, not sure how many people would use it. Certainly, i don't use it, so i changed it to SWAP LIST, so when i press F2, i can see the all the panels, i had opened and i can switch among them. How to do this,

  1. Type KEYS in command
  2. Update F2 key section from SPLIT to SWAP LIST

SDSF Additional header
In SDSF, by default you know wont know whether display is filtered by PREFIX or OWNER. Sometimes you may go on to randomly set PRE *; OWNER * and then set PRE SUSH* something like this.

There is a command to get an additional header above the SDSF header. That gives all this information.

  • SET DISPLAY ON - Turns ON the additional header
  • SET DISPLAY OFF - Turns off the additional header

SDSF more information
Usually when we submit a job, we can go and check the results in SPOOL and we are happy, when we see the RC as 0. If anything other than 0, we might want to inspect and to view more details we specify ? in the line command and go in. Do you know SYSOUT datasets can be hidden from normal view and it can unhidden by entering command input on and turned off by input off

SWAPBAR
If you give SWAPBAR ON multiple panels will be neatly lined up in the bottom of the screen, they are Point&Shoot fields so having cursor on it and press enter you can go into that panel. You can turn this off by giving SWAPBAR OFF


# Other mainframe commands

Updated on 09/April/2020

TSO LU / TSO LISTUSER
Shows what RACF groups are attached to your RACF ID

TSO LG racf-groupname
Shows RACF IDs connected to this RACF group, they can be either CONNECT/USE

TSO SHOWMSV
Generates interesting output with lots mainframe information from z/OS version, Last IPL date, Software versions of (TSO, RACF, HSM..).

TSO ISRDDN / DDLIST
To known what datasets are allocated to your ID. This helps to check if Rexx library is concatenated to your RACF ID.Atleast thats where i most used it.

SAREA
This tells where you are mostly like which plex

TSO ISHELL
To get into Unix shell in mainframe

Thanks