A little more than one and a half year ago I wrote a tip about how to make your own SDSF. Meanwhile I have discovered a fantastic command in SDSF called COLSHELP. This command can display the names of the REXX stem variables in which the contents of the different columns are placed. When you execute COLSHELP the panel displayed looks similar to this:

                          Columns on SDSF Panels         Row 1330 from 1434
Command ===>                                                               
                                                                           
Sort with F5 (panel), F6 (column), F10 (title). Use Filter to filter rows. 
                                                                           
   All panels           Descriptions                                       
                                                                           
Panel     Column      Title                 Delayed?  Overtype?            
ST        EXECNODE    ExecNode                        JES2                 
ST        DEVID       Device                                               
ST        RETCODE     Max-RC                                               
ST        SRVCLS      SrvClass                        X                    
ST        WLMPOS      WPos                                                 
ST        SCHENV      Scheduling-Env                  JES2                 
ST        DELAY       Dly                                                  
ST        SSMODE      Mode                                                 
ST        PHASENAME   PhaseName                                            
ST        PHASE       Phase                                                
ST        ROOMN       RNum                  X                              
ST        PNAME       Programmer-Name       X                              
ST        ACCTN       Acct                  X                              
ST        NOTIFY      Notify                X                              

The display is context sensitive and the above output is the result of executing COLSHELP on the ST display (Panel ST). The list of columns/stem-variables is thus dependent of where you execute COLSHELP. If you want to use the Max-RC column in you SDSF REXX, you should use the stem-variable RETCODE. Well there is hardly any excuse left to avoid building your own SDSF ;o)

Please note the column Delayed? If the column you want to use in your REXX has an X in the Delayed? column, your ISFEXEC command needs an extra parameter:

ADDRESS SDSF "ISFEXEC ST (DELAYED)"

You should append (DELAYED) after the name of the panel you want to pick data from. This parameter will also make your call to SDSF even more resource consuming, because it forces SDSF to make one more I/O for each row that the SDSF command returns to your REXX.