RE: Writing Commands, how-to manual where?

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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