Some Commands and Shortcuts for the MVS ISPF Editor

This document lists some of the more common ISPF editting commands and the PF key shortcuts. There is also a brief overview of the editor and its "philosophy"

ISPF Overview

ISPF editor is a strange mix of in-place editting like emacs in overwrite mode and line oriented editors like vi. Strictly it is page oriented and within a page you can move the cursor, overtype existing text or type new text.
There is a command field opposite each line into which you can type line commands to copy, delete or move lines. These take effect the next time you hit enter.
There is also a command-line at the top of the screen similar to the ':' prompt in vi or the M-x prompt in emacs (or the DO key for all you VMS/TPU users...). Here you type commands like 'DOWN 200' to move 200 lines down the file.
Finally there are the Function (PF) keys which can be tailored somewhat to your own requirements and allow you to split screen (actually giving a new TSO session!), page up/down etc.

Note that the editor in Infoman is a subset of ISPF - only the most basic commands work in either the command line area or the command field.

ISPF PF Keys

ISPF Command line commands

The most useful are: Other useful commands include:

ISPF In-Line Commands

The In-Line commands come in 2 varieties. Single letter commands act on a single line. These include A, B, I etc. Range Commands consist of double letters marking the start and finish of a range. Thus CC will be entered at the start line and finish line of a region to be copied. An A will insert the copied block into the file starting on the line after the one with the 'A'.
The most common Line Commands are listed below(* means a range can be specified): Note: You have to be careful when specifying multiple commands in the same screen that you don't try to copy a deleted line etc. The commands are performed in sequential order. You will get a reasonably helpful error message if you do get too clever for your own good!

That should be enough to be going on with. There are lots more things you can do but you'll need to find and ask an ISPF expert for that - try somebody in ASG!...