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  3. August 2004

RE: Writing Commands, how-to manual where?

Weird as it might seem, one can think of CMD source as CL source, to a degree. Each "statement" of a command (PARM, QUAL, ELEM, DEP, etc.) is actually a CL command that you can prompt, even at a command line. The FILE parameter of PARM has to do with DSPPGMREF - it says whether this parameter (now that's what I call overloading!) is a file and how it is used, viz., input, output, or both. *UNSPFD means it is a file and we don't know how it is used. It's in the help text.

This kind of thing won't be in the manual - that book is not comprehensive - it's a programming guide, not a reference manual, I guess. The reference is the help for each "statement".

There might be some stuff out there on MCPessOnline and iSeriesNetwork. I've found that the best thing I can do is look at IBM commands and sort of reverse-engineer things.

Retrieve Command Definition (QCDRCMDD) API can retrieve a command definition into XML. It's pretty neat, and I found a style sheet for displaying it in a web browser. That was at Midrange Server, although I'm happy to put it here if you're interested and if I can remember how to use it!

The weakness of the API is, it does not tell you about command parameters that are defined as CONSTANT - these are hidden. I've not asked yet why - maybe to hide secret stuff in IBM's commands. Trilateral Commission, here I come!

HTH
Vern

At 03:51 PM 8/20/2004, you wrote: 
Actually,

I'm looking at the source for the command itself.  One of the parameters was
defined:
        Parm     FILE          Q0001             +
                 Min( 1 )                        +
                 File( *UNSPFD )                 +
                 Choice( *NONE )                 +
                 Prompt( 'File' )


The *UNSPFD isn't mentioned in the CL programming manual.  However, as Doug
suggested, the online help for the PARM command provides more detail
including all possible values for the FILE parameter of the PARM command ;-)

Charles



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