REXX is a powerful multi-purpose and user-friendly programming tool, used to exploit many IBM and third-party operational products. It is the tool of choice in most (if not all) of today's larger data centers for those who need to implement new operational procedures both quickly and effectively.
This three-day course is designed for TSO/ISPF users who wish to learn how to create and use programs in the REXX language. The course is taught combining formal classroom teaching with many practical exercises and problem scenarios, thus ensuring a full understanding of this powerful procedural language.
elements of the REXX language: Clauses, Tokens, Labels, Assignments, Instructions and Commands
constant and variable symbols
Simple, Compound & Stem variable symbols
operators for concatenation, arithmetic, comparison & logical operations. This segment introduces the terminology associated with REXX and shows how data fields are defined and initialized
Tracing and Debugging
Using TRACE instruction for debugging
using immediate commands HI, HT, TS and TE
use of EXECUTIL
interpreting TRACE output. This segmentcdescribes the tracing facilities available in REXX to enable more rapid problem determination
Parsing Strings
Parsing variables and strings
basic parsing techniques
special templates
place holders, literal patterns, and numeric patterns.
Explains how input from any source can be split into useable entities using various techniques
creating and controlling loops: DO WHILE, UNTIL, FOREVER, LEAVE, ITERATE
introduction to sub-routines.
This segment describes the IF, THEN, ELSE logic used in REXX
Sub-routines and Functions
Internal and external sub-routines
how to create internal and external functions
passing arguments and results to and from sub-routines and functions
CALL
RETURN
EXIT
PROCEDURE
RESULT.
This segment shows how to create subroutines and functions, and identifies the difference between them
REXX Built-in Functions
Introduction to REXX supplied built in functions
how to use the most useful ones: ARG, DATE, TIME, DATATYPE, LENGTH, POS, WORDS, LEFT, RIGHT, STRIP, SPACE, COPIES and WORD.
This segment explains the commonly used REXX built-in functions, and indicates their use in REXX programs
Data Stack Management
LIFO and FIFO stacking
avoiding the stack
writing to the stack: PUSH and QUEUE
reading from the stack: PARSE PULL
creating and managing extensions to the stack: MAKEBUF, QBUF and DROPBUF
interrogating the stack: QUEUE, QELEM
creating and managing private stacks: NEWSTACK, DELSTACK and QSTACK.
This segment describes the stack mechanisms used by TSO and REXX
Using TSO Commands & Functions
Using TSO commands and functions: SYSDSN, LISTDSI, MSG, OUTTRAP, PROMPT and SYSVAR
reading and writing datasets with EXECIO.
Shows how to invoke and use TSO commands from a REXX program
Course Modules
Introduction to REXX
Executing REXX EXECs
elements of the REXX language: Clauses, Tokens, Labels, Assignments, Instructions and Commands
constant and variable symbols
Simple, Compound & Stem variable symbols
operators for concatenation, arithmetic, comparison & logical operations. This segment introduces the terminology associated with REXX and shows how data fields are defined and initialized
Tracing and Debugging
Using TRACE instruction for debugging
using immediate commands HI, HT, TS and TE
use of EXECUTIL
interpreting TRACE output. This segmentcdescribes the tracing facilities available in REXX to enable more rapid problem determination
Parsing Strings
Parsing variables and strings
basic parsing techniques
special templates
place holders, literal patterns, and numeric patterns.
Explains how input from any source can be split into useable entities using various techniques