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Status Future consideration
Workspace z/OS
Categories ISPF
Created by Guest
Created on Nov 8, 2017

ISPF Edit Compare must support ascii files such as z/OSMF XML ones

ISPF Edit Compare does not work correctly with ascii files in a z/OS Unix file system, though it works correctly with EBCDIC files in a z/OS file system.

Using ISPF Edit Compare in option 3.17 for z/OS Unix files on z/OS 2.2 at RSU1703, the COMP * X and other variations of Compare show older files as continuous string of characters rather than comparing to current file's formatted display. This behavior renders ISPF Edit Compare unusable with Unix files that are not EBCDIC. Working with z/OSMF Workflows and trying to compare the XML files is where I see the problem most often. An Edit Compare of a unix file to itself (with no changes) even has this problem.

Idea priority Low
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Apr 7, 2020

    There is already a lot of tooling on z/OS which is working with ASCII files. - Liberty, Machine Learning, z/OSMF, Git,...
    Those tools are not just used from the client side, they are maintained and configured on the host side.
    It is necessary to have a functioning toolset to handle all the ASCII files on-host.
    In my opinion, it makes no sense to through away a powerful ISPF and fall down to something like vi or diff.