REXX can make your daily mainframe life even better. It helps you in automating the daily manual stuff you do which consumes most of your productivity. Small tools developed with REXX will be really helpful on a day to day basis.

I am planning to post the tools that I have seen/copied/written/been using. Some of them, you might already be using it. This is the first of the tools.

O – Open any mainframe element from any screen

When you are new to a company (or already part of one for some time), it will take time for you to open an element by going to 3.4 and typing in the PDS name and then opening it and then locating the member you need and then viewing it. All these steps can be performed by one single command, and the member can be in any of the PDS (COBOL, JCL, CONTROL CARD, PROC, COPYBOOK,…) that you have provide in the tool.

Please find attached the Tool. Please make changes to the PDS names at the top. You can add as many as you like. When you add more than 6, please remember to change the number from 6 in the below line.

DO I = 1 TO 6

You need to copy the TOOL to a PDS where your company usually stores the REXX execs. This PDS will be part of your DD SYSEXEC or SYSPROC (when you type TSO ISRDDN). Please ensure you do not already have an element O in it.

Once you have copied, please use the tool by typing as below in any of the screen.

TSO O ELEMENT-NAME

Please share if this REXX TOOLS series is useful to you.