Using asterisks in MODIFY commands

Certain forms of the MODIFY command allow you to specify the following for a job or started task:
  • An identifier
  • An optional job name.

You can use the asterisk wildcard to direct the MODIFY command to more than one job or started task. The asterisk indicates that a MODIFY command applies to all jobs or started tasks that match a leading character string.

For example, when specifying an identifier without an optional job name, you can enter the following command to pass a two-digit value to all jobs with identifiers beginning with R1: 
F R1*,00
You can also use the asterisk wildcard when you specify both a job name and identifier. For example you can enter the following command to pass a two-digit value to all jobs with names beginning with WX and identifiers beginning with R1: 
F WX*.R1*,00

When you specify asterisks with device numbers, the system assumes that the device numbers are four digits long. For example, /13* would match on 1301, 1302, and so on, but would not match on 13C.

Remember the following rules when using asterisk notation:
  • If you specify only the identifier parameter (without the jobname parameter), you cannot specify a stand-alone asterisk on the identifier parameter.
  • If you specify both the jobname and identifier parameters, you cannot specify a stand-alone asterisk for both parameters.
For example, to pass a two-digit value to all jobs with names beginning with WX, you can specify a single asterisk on the identifier to indicate a wildcard: 
F WX*.*,00

If you were to remove the WX characters from the command, it would not be valid. You cannot specify *.* without a leading character string on the jobname parameter, identifier parameter, or both.

The following figures illustrate how asterisk notation works in MODIFY commands. Table 1 shows examples of START commands that are used to start jobs. Columns three and four show the associated jobnames and identifiers.

Table 1. Examples of START commands to start jobs
Job number START command Jobname Identifier
1 START YZ YZ YZ
2 START WX.YZ WX YZ
3 START WX.YZ1 WX YZ1
4 START WX1.YZ1 WX1 YZ1
5 START WX, JOBNAME =WX1 WX1 WX1
6 START WX, JOBNAME =WX2 WX2 WX2
7 START WX, JOBNAME =YZ YZ YZ
8 START Q.YZ3 Q YZ3
9 START WX.R1 WX R1
10 START WX, JOBNAME =YZ4 YZ4 YZ4

Table 2 shows examples of MODIFY commands. The numbers in the second column indicate to which jobs in Table 1 each MODIFY command applies.

Table 2. Examples of MODIFY commands
MODIFY command Affected jobs
F WX.YZ,parameters 2
F WX.YZ*,parameters 2, 3
F YZ.*,parameters 1, 7
F WX*,parameters 5, 6
F YZ*,parameters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10
F WX*.YZ,parameters 2
F WX*.YZ*,parameters 2, 3, 4
F *.YZ*,parameters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10
F *.YZ,parameters 1, 2, 7
F WX*.*,parameters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9
F WX.*,parameters 2, 3, 9