Command table format
A command table is an ISPF table in which each row contains the
specification for one command. Each column contains a variable for
the command. The variables are:
- ZCTVERB
- Specifies the name of the command. A command name must be from 2-8 characters long and must begin with an alphabetic character. Note that the terms command name and command verb are synonymous and are used interchangeably.
- ZCTTRUNC
- Specifies the minimum number of characters that you must enter to find a match with the command name. If this number is zero or equal to the length of the name, you must enter the entire name. This number must not be one, or be greater than the length of the name.
- ZCTACT
- Specifies the action to be performed when the command specified in ZCTVERB is entered. Can be up to 240 characters.
- ZCTDESC
- Contains a brief description of the purpose of the command. This variable is optional. It is not used by the DM component in processing the command, but it is displayed by the command table utility. The description is limited to 80 characters.
The dialog manager treats ZCTVERB, ZCTTRUNC, ZCTACT, and ZCTDESC as defined function variables. They are not accessible to dialogs.
The valid actions that can be performed (ZCTACT) are:
- SELECT
- Followed by selection keywords causes the selected dialog (command, program, or menu) to be given control immediately.
- ALIAS
- Followed by another command and any parameters allows specification of command aliases.
- PASSTHRU
- Causes the command to be passed to the dialog instead of continuing to search the system table.
- SETVERB
- Causes the command to be passed to the dialog with the command verb stored in ZVERB separately from the parameters. The ISPF system commands distributed with the product that have SETVERB as an action are not always passed through to the dialog. See Passing commands to a dialog function for further discussion.
- NOP
- Causes the command to be inactive. ISPF displays an inactive command message in this case.
- Blank (no action)
- Causes the table entry to be ignored. Scanning continues, searching for additional entries with the same name.
- A variable name
- The name begins with an ampersand and can be one of the actions described in this list. This allows dynamic specification of command action.
Additional action keywords are used to indicate system commands for which special processing is required. These are CURSOR, PRINT, PRINTG, PRINT-HI, PRINTL, PRINTLHI, SPLIT, SPLITV, SWAP, and RETRIEVE. Although these are valid actions, they are intended for use only in the system command table distributed with ISPF and are intended to be used only with the associated command verb. They are not intended for use in application command tables.