Interactive System Productivity Facility LPEX commands

The z Systems® LPEX editor supports several Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) commands in addition to the commands provided by the base LPEX editor.

The commands supported by the base LPEX editor are described in ISPF base profile and Key settings in the ISPF editor profile. The behavior of these commands is similar to the behavior of the same commands in the ISPF editor. For detailed descriptions of the ISPF editor commands and string specification, refer to the ISPF Edit and Edit Macros book. The commands within the LPEX editor provide a subset of the functions available in the ISPF editor.

Commands that accept strings generally accept the same formats that the ISPF commands accept. For example, quoted, character, text, and picture strings are accepted. Additionally, regular expressions are accepted as search strings by placing the regular expression in quotation marks that are preceded by an R. For example, FIND R'[0-9]{3}' finds strings that contain three numbers. Hexadecimal specification is not accepted.

By default, the function keys are set as follows:
  • F5 Repeat Find
  • F6 Repeat Change
  • F7 Scroll Up
  • F8 Scroll Down
  • F10 Page Left
  • F11 Page Right

The highlighting of strings is done differently in LPEX than it is in ISPF. In ISPF, all instances of a found string are highlighted. In LPEX, only the current instance of the string is highlighted.

Labels also behave slightly differently within the LPEX editor because ISPF labels are not a native feature of the LPEX editor.

Multiple edit primary commands can be chained together by placing a semicolon between the commands.
Table 1. ISPF commands supported by the z Systems LPEX editor
Name* Description Supported parameters
C Find and replace
  • {FIRST, LAST, NEXT, PREV, ALL}
  • {CHARS, WORD, SUFFIX, PREFIX }
  • {column numbers}
  • {label range}
F Find
  • {FIRST, LAST, NEXT, PREV, ALL}
  • {CHARS, WORD, SUFFIX, PREFIX }
  • {column numbers}
  • {label range}
X Exclude lines.
  • {FIRST, LAST, NEXT, PREV, ALL}
  • {CHARS, WORD, SUFFIX, PREFIX}
  • {column numbers}
  • {label range}
SORT Sort document lines.
  • { A, D }
  • { X, NX }
  • {column numbers}
  • {label range}
BOUNDS Set context boundary for commands.

Note: The BOUNDS command does not affect commands that are entered in the prefix area (such as the shift command: ))). The BOUNDS command affects only commands that are entered in the LPEX command line, namely C, F, X, and SORT.

 {column numbers}
RFIND Repeat the last find command. N/A
RCHANGE Repeat the last change command. N/A
FLIP Inverts the include/exclude status of each line in the document. Hidden lines become shown and vice versa. N/A
RESET Show excluded lines and remove the highlighting of found strings. { X, CHG, FIND }
DELETE Deletes lines in a specified range. { ALL, X, NX, label range }
* Many of these commands have aliases. For example:
FIND, F CHANGE, C EXCLUDE, X BOUNDS, BNDS RESET, RES DELETE, DEL