Browsing files without formatting

Using the shell: The z/OS® shell has a quick way to find out what is in a given file: the head command and the tail command.

head filename: Displays the first 10 lines of the given file or files.
tail filename: Displays the last 10 lines of the given file or files.

Suppose you have a file that contains records sorted according to date. tail tells you the date of the last records in the file, giving you an idea of how current the file's contents are. In a sorted comic book list, for example, tail could show the most recent comics that had been recorded in the file.

To display the contents of an entire file, you can use any of these commands: cat, pg, more, or obrowse.

Using ISPF: To use ISPF to browse a z/OS UNIX file, you can take one of the following actions:

Enter the TSO/E OBROWSE command followed by the path name for the file. This command displays the file, which you can begin browsing.
Select an option for browse on the ISPF menu, if such an option is available.

After the file is displayed, you can use function keys to scroll forward and backward in the file.

For complete information about browsing, see z/OS ISPF User's Guide Vol II.