VIEW—view a data set

The VIEW service enables you to manipulate data without the risk of saving changes. As in the EDIT service, data can be manipulated through the use of familiar line and primary commands.

The VIEW service functions exactly like the EDIT service, with these exceptions:

  • You must use the REPLACE or CREATE primary command to save data. The SAVE primary command is disabled when using the VIEW service.
  • If you are AUTOSAVE mode and enter the END primary command after you have altered the file being viewed, the View Warning pop-up panel gives you the option of exiting with no changes saved (by entering the END command again), or using the CREATE or REPLACE command to save your changes. If you have made no changes to the data set or member being viewed, the VIEW service terminates as it would in EDIT mode.

The VIEW service provides an interface to the VIEW function and bypasses the display of the View Entry Panel. The VIEW interface allows you to use a customized panel for displaying data (use panel ISREFR01 as a model when creating your panel), and lets you specify the initial macro and the edit profile to be used.

You can use VIEW to view partitioned data sets, sequential data sets, z/OS® UNIX files, and data sets that can be allocated by using the LMINIT service. You can use the service recursively, either through nested dialogs or by entering a VIEW command while viewing a member or data set. In addition, the EDIT and BROWSE commands can be nested within a VIEW session until you run out of storage.

Note:
  1. Dialogs that invoke the VIEW service may invoke the EDREC service first to start view recovery, because the VIEW service does not do view recovery.
  2. The VIEW service might alter the DISPLAY environment. Do not expect the DISPLAY environment that existed before invoking the VIEW service to remain unchanged.
  3. The VIEW service cannot be issued by a PL/I main program that also uses subtasking.
  4. When you do an EDREC QUERY, ZEDMODE is set to V for View or E for Edit.

When VIEW is operating in recovery mode, a record of your interactions is automatically recorded in a PDF-controlled data set. Following a system failure, you can use the record to recover the data you were viewing.

A dialog using VIEW can place data into the ZEDUSER dialog variable in the shared pool. The data in ZEDUSER is saved in the edit recovery table as an extension variable when the recovery data set is initialized. This is done if RECOVERY is ON when first entering view or after using the CREATE or REPLACE command. The data is then made available in dialog variable ZEDUSER at the time view recovery is processed.