This tip continues the story about the easiness of copying datasets and members in ISPF. Back in week 34 in 2005 I wrote about how easy it has become to copy datasets and members using ISPF option 3.3. The same ease of use is also implemented in ISPF EDIT/VIEW.

Data copying in ISPF EDIT is done by using the commands COPY, REPLACE or CREATE. COPY is used to copy data into the ISPF EDIT/VIEW session, while CREATE and REPLACE copies data to external datasets or members. Until now I have assumed that these commands only accepted a member as parameter. Consequently I thought there were no way around the extra panel displayed when the member name was not supplied.

Just for fun I one day tried to use the name of a dataset as a parameter and to my big surprise it worked. I was even more surprised when I used a non-existing dataset on a CREATE. A pop up panel was neatly displayed and asked me how I wanted to allocate the new dataset. One option was just to use the attributes of the dataset I was editing. I liked that a lot. Now I am constantly using COPY and REPLACE to create new datasets.

Let me explain how COPY, REPLACE and CREATE interpretes the parameter. If you supply a membername and you are editing a member then the parameter is treated as a member name. If you are editing a dataset then the membername is treated as the second qualifier in a dataset name where the high level qualifier is your TSO prefix (normally your userid). If the parameter looks like <qualifier>.<qualifier>... it is interpreted as a dataset name beginning with your TSO prefix. You may also put a member name after the dataset name in the usual fashion. Of course you can put the dataset name in quotes in order to avoid the TSO prefixing.

Before you start using these fantastic possibilities I must warn you that your installation must have installed MVS version OS/390 V2R8 or more (all z/OS releases are more) and the matching ISPF version. I hope most installations world wide are z/OS installations.