Understanding the shell screen

When you start the shell, you see the panel in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The z/OS® shell's display screen when the shell is first invoked. The bottom two lines show the default function key settings.

 
 IBM
 Licensed Material - Property of IBM
 5647-A01 (C) Copyright IBM Corp. 1993, 2013
 (C) Copyright Mortice Kern Systems, Inc., 1985, 1996.
 (C) Copyright Software Development Group, University of Waterloo, 1989.

 U.S. Government users - Restricted Rights 
 Use, duplication, or disclosure restricted by 
GSA-ADP schedule contract with IBM Corp.

 IBM is a registered trademark of the IBM Corp.


 $









===>
                                                                   RUNNING
ESC=¢  1=Help    2=SubCmd   3=HlpRetrn   4=Top      5=Bottom   6=TSO
       7=BackScr 8=Scroll   9=NextSess  10=Refresh 11=FwdRetr 12=Retrieve

The $ prompt is an indication from the shell that it is ready to accept input, which you type at the command line (===>). For a superuser, the default prompt is a #.

You can define a different prompt in your $HOME/.profile file, if you want to. (See Customizing the z/OS shell for more information about your $HOME/.profile file.)

You see:

The command line (===>), used for input.
The current function key settings and the current escape character assignments. You can turn off the function key display by typing the NOPF subcommand and turn on the display by typing the PF subcommand; alternatively, you can customize a function key to control the display of the function key settings. See Customizing the OMVS interface for details on customizing function keys.
Note: The figures in this topic show the default function key settings.
The status indicator in the right-hand corner, just above the function key lines. When you first enter the shell, the status indicator is RUNNING. This indicator lets you know the status of your session; for example, if an application is running or if the shell session is ready for input.
The session number, in angle brackets, following the status indicator. The session number is displayed if there is more than one session active.

Figure 2 shows how a screen would look after some input had been entered.

Figure 2. The z/OS shell's display screen after input has been entered

$ ls -l
total 7
drwxr-xr-x   2 SMITHA     0              0 Dec  3 04:25 bin
drwxr-xr-x   2 SMITHA     0              0 Nov 19 15:16 doc
-rw-rwxrwx   2 SMITHA     0            250 Nov 17 23:07 etc
-rw-r--r--   2 SMITHA     0             17 Nov 17 23:07 fora
-rw-r--r--   5 SMITHA     0           1605 Dec  3 16:38 port
-rw-r--r--   2 SMITHA     0            472 Nov 17 23:15 script
drwxr-xr-x   2 SMITHA     0              0 Nov 17 23:07 src
drwxr-xr-x  15 SMITHA     0              0 Dec  3 20:37 projecta
$








 ===>
                                                                   INPUT
ESC=¢  1=Help    2=SubCmd   3=HlpRetrn   4=Top      5=Bottom   6=TSO
       7=BackScr 8=Scroll   9=NextSess  10=Refresh 11=FwdRetr 12=Retrieve

At the top of the screen, $ is the prompt and ls -l is the command that was entered. Beneath that is the output from the command. When a command completes, a $ prompt is displayed, indicating that you can enter another command on the command line.

If you make an error entering a command or you are running a shell script or program that ends in error, the error message is displayed in the output area. Some error messages are displayed after the last output line. Others—for example, error messages issued in subcommand mode—appear at the very top of the panel followed by a separator line. To clear an error message displayed at the top of the panel above a separator line, press <Enter> without typing any input.