bad backslash in mvs rexx

[ratso]

try this in mvs rexx

/*rexx*/
say '/'

as you would expect you get a '/' displayed on screen.

now try

/*rexx*/
say '\'

note backslash not forward slash, it converts it to ':'

this is a problem for me since im trying to NDM files from mainframe to NT shared drives using connect direct, and the pathnames required by the JCL contain lots of '\' - forward slash (/) wont work, ndm rejects them.

Anybody got any ideas?

 

[kevinf2349]

Hmmmm interesting problem.

If you are building the job dynamically and submitting it online, you could code an EDIT macro to run against the 'finished' JCL and replace a known string (eg. ??) with '\'. I did a quick check and the TSO change command handles '\'.

Other than that...maybe a quick and dirty program to do the same thing may work.

I would have thought that this may be APARable. It sure doesn't seem like it should do this to me....but it does it here too and we are on z/OS.

 

[kevinf2349]

Just thought I would provide the EDIT macro for you

/* REXX */
"ISREDIT MACRO"
/* ADDRESS ISPEXEC "VGET (ZTEMPF)" */
TRAPON=OUTTRAP('ON')
"ISREDIT C '??' '\' ALL"
"ISREDIT SAVE"
/* "SUBMIT "ZTEMPF */

 

[ratso]

its ok, apparently the tput command is the culprit, tso has a problem displaying certain characters whereas ispf does not, as a result other undisplayable characters also appear as colons (':') {such as curly brackets etc). The actual character is still as entered, ie backslash is '\' but displayed as :, c2x function shows that hex wise the character is E0 x, so rexx will still process it as \.
Displaying it to a panel apparently solves it.
Anyway, dont believe all that you see.

 

[bobham]

An ascii blackslash is deceimal 92 whcih is a * in ebcdic; The colon you're getting is REXX...

bobh