Editing z/OS Unix files

You can open a file in your z/OS Unix file system and edit the contents by using the z/OS® Explorer. When your changes are complete, you can save the file if you are authorized to do so. You can also use the Save As action to save the changes with a different file name or file path.

To open a file for editing, locate the file in the z/OS Unix files view, right-click and click Open. Alternatively, you can double-click the file. The file opens in an editor view.

Important: When you open a file for editing, z/OS Explorer places a copy of the file in your local workspace. When you save the file, z/OS Explorer replaces the file in the z/OS Unix file system with the copy from your workspace. If the file in the file system has changed since z/OS Explorer took the copy, for example, another user has made and saved changes, the file in the file system is overwritten and the other user's changes are lost.

You can refresh the content of the file in your workspace at any time by pressing F5. This action synchronizes your copy with the server copy, however any local changes you have made and not saved will be lost and will have to be reapplied. The refresh action is disabled if the file has unsaved edits to prevent you losing your changes.

When you first open the file for editing the file opens in the editor view in the workbench edit area. The following screen capture shows an example file open in the editor view.

An screen capture showing an example file open in the editor view.

The workbench status bar provides more details about the file. The status bar information for the previous example looks like the following screen capture. The screen capture of the status bar shows three fields. The text in the first field indicates that the file is writeable, the text in the second field indicates that the editor is in insert mode, and the numbers in the third field show that the cursor is positioned at row 5 column 20.

A screen capture of the status bar showing three fields. The text in the first field indicates that the file is writeable, the text in the second field indicates that the editor is in insert mode, and the numbers in the third field show that the cursor is positioned at row 5 column 20.

showing that the file is writeable, that the editor is in Insert mode, and that the cursor is on line 5 column 20.

Note: A z/OS Unix file is shown as Writable even if the file permission is read-only. This is because you can make changes to the file in the editor, and then use the Save As action to save the file with a different file name or at a different location.

You can display line numbers in the editor by right-clicking the vertical bar at the left-side of the view, and then clicking Show Line numbers in the menu.

When you change a file, an asterisk is placed in front of the file name in the view tab: A screen capture of the view tab showing an asterisk in front of the file name. . The asterisk indicates that the file contents have changed but have not been saved.

The following edit actions are available from the workbench Edit menu or the view context menu:

Table 1. Edit menu actions
Name	Function	Keyboard shortcut
Undo typing	Undo the last change in the editor	Ctrl + Z
Redo	Redo the previous change that was undone	Ctrl + Y
Cut	Copies the currently selected text or element to the clipboard and removes the element. On elements, the remove is not performed before the clipboard is pasted.	Ctrl + X
Copy	Copies the currently selected text or elements to the clipboard	Ctrl + C
Paste	Paste the current content as text to the editor, or as a sibling or child element to the a currently selected element.	Ctrl + V
Delete	Delete the current text or element selection.	Delete key
Find Next	Finds the next occurrence of the currently selected text.	Ctrl + K
Find Previous	Finds the previous occurrence of the currently selected text.	Ctrl + Shift + K
Incremental Find Next	Starts the incremental find mode. After invocation, enter the search text. As you type the cursor moves to the character position after the cursor position that matches the text you type. The text you type is shown in the status bar.	Ctrl + J
Incremental Find Previous	Starts the incremental find previous mode. After invocation, enter the search text. As you type the cursor moves to the character position before the cursor position that matches the text you type.	Ctrl + Shift + J
Show Tooltip Description	Not in use	None
Word Completion	Proposes word completions for the current string based on all words found in any open editor.	Alt + /

Table 2. View context menu actions
Name	Function	Keyboard shortcut
Undo typing	Undo the last change in the editor	Ctrl + Z
Revert File	Revert the content of the current editor back to the content of the last saved file. Disabled if the editor does not contain unsaved changes.
Save	Save the content of the current editor. Disabled if the editor does not contain unsaved changes.	Ctrl + S
Save As	Save the content of the current editor as a different file name, or at a different location. Disabled if the editor does not contain unsaved changes.
Show In	Not in use	Alt + Shift + W
Cut	Copies the currently selected text or element to the clipboard and removes the element. On elements, the remove is not performed before the clipboard is pasted.	Ctrl + X
Copy	Copies the currently selected text or elements to the clipboard	Ctrl + C
Paste	Paste the current content as text to the editor, or as a sibling or child element to the a currently selected element.	Ctrl + V

When your edits are complete, you save your changes by either clicking the Save icon on the z/OS Explorer toolbar, or right-clicking in the editor view and clicking Save As to save the file with a different file name or in a different location. You can the close the editor by clicking the X in the editor tab. If you try to close the editor before you save any changes, the Save resource dialog is displayed so that you can choose whether or not to save the changes.