OEDIT - Edit a z/OS UNIX file

Format

OEDIT [-r xx] pathname
or 
OEDIT [-r xx] 'pathname'

Description

The OEDIT command uses the ISPF Edit facility to edit files in the z/OS® UNIX file system.

If you enter OEDIT without specifying a path name, the Edit Entry panel is displayed. From that panel, you can enter the directory name and file name of an existing file, or you can specify a directory name and file name for a new file. The Edit Entry panel also lets you specify an edit profile and an initial edit macro.

Parameters

pathname
Specifies the path name of the file to be edited. The path name can be absolute or relative. It can be enclosed in single quotation marks. A relative path name is relative to the working directory of the TSO/E session (typically the HOME directory). Therefore, you should typically specify an absolute path name. If you enter OEDIT from the shell, use the absolute path name. Do not use spaces or single quotation marks within path names.

Options

-r xx
Set the record length to be edited for fixed-length text files. xx is the record length.

If -r xx is specified, the file is processed as variable length but loaded into the editor as fixed-length records and saved as fixed-length records. This lets you convert a variable length file to fixed length. If any lines are longer than the specified record length, the edit session will not load the file and will issue the customary message that a line is too long.

Usage notes

  1. All directories in pathname, starting from the root, must be searchable.
  2. ASCII files must be tagged as ISO8859-1 in order for OEDIT to automatically convert the file. Do not enter the OEDIT session and type SOURCE ASCII.
  3. The COPY command cannot copy in files that have records wider than the edit session.
  4. The TSO region size must be large enough to hold the size of the file to be edited.
  5. Two ISPF variables are available to edit macros:
    • HFSCWD. This variable contains the path name for the directory in which the file being edited resides.
    • HFSNAME. This variable contains the name of the file that is being edited.