Using commands, function keys, and light pen or cursor selection

This topic explains how to use the ISPF system commands, the function keys and their default assignments, and the light pen and cursor-select facilities.

You can use commands to request processing functions. These are the levels of commands:

System commands: Provided by the DM component and always available to a user, unless explicitly overridden by an application, a user, or a site.
User or Site commands: Defined by the site administrator (in the ISPF Configuration table) and available to a user, in addition to the system commands.
Application commands: Available to a user throughout the processing of an application.
Function commands: Meaningful only while using a particular function within an application.

System, user, site, and application commands are defined by using command tables. The DM component processes these commands. System, user, site, and application command processing is generally transparent to the dialog functions. For example, HELP is a system command.

Function commands include all commands that are processed by a dialog function. For example, the NUMBER command within the ISPF Editor (option 2) is a function command.

You can enter a command by:

Typing the information on the command line, or in the command field, and pressing the Enter key. This includes the command field in View, Browse, Edit, and Table Displays, as well as the command field on a panel.
Pressing the function key set to the desired command.
Selecting an Attention field by using the light pen or the cursor-select key. The cursor-select key is a hardware feature on 3179, 3179G, 3180, 3278, 3279, and 3290 terminals.

ISPF intercepts all commands, regardless of whether the command is typed in the command field or entered with a function key, light pen, or cursor-select key. The DM component performs the command if it matches an entry in the application, user, or system command table. Otherwise, it is assumed to be a function command and is passed to the dialog function.

You can pass commands to the operating system by entering the appropriate ISPF-provided command (TSO) followed by the actual TSO command. For example:

    ===> TSO LISTC LEVEL(Z77PHJ)

You can stack commands to be run by entering a special delimiter between the commands. For example, entering:

    ===> UPDATE BLDG DEPT NAME; MENU ABC

causes the UPDATE command to run first. When it completes, the MENU command starts. The default delimiter is a semicolon (;), which you can change with the ISPF SETTINGS option (see the Settings (Option 0) topic of the z/OS ISPF User's Guide Vol II.

Commands cannot be stacked following the:

HELP command. HELP processing deletes any remaining commands in the stack.
RETRIEVE command.