REXX Support in the Unicenter Mainframe Network Management Suite Release 11
The next release of products in the Unicenter Mainframe Network Management Suite will support the REXX language. This article discusses what this change will mean to the NetMaster user, and the extent of the changes made in Release 11.
The introduction of REXX offers NetMaster users the choice of programming in NCL or REXX, depending on the user's familiarity and specific needs. REXX delivers new functionality previously unavailable in NetMaster, while also allowing many customer-written NetView REXX programs to run under NetMaster unchanged.
The implementation of REXX in the Release 11 products is GREXX, which is CA's implementation of REXX. GREXX is used by many CA products and has some minor differences to TSO REXX. In a majority of situations, the differences will not be apparent to the REXX programmer. Differences will be noted in Release 11 documentation.
ADDRESS NM
To facilitate the use of REXX as an alternative to NCL, the ADDRESS NM environment will be delivered. ADDRESS NM allows a REXX program to make use of some standard NetMaster facilities. Of major importance, a REXX program will be able to use ADDRESS NM to call any program written in NCL. The list of NetMaster facilities available from ADDRESS NM are as follows:
NetMaster Facilities supported by ADDRESS NM in Release 11:
CALL | Call an NCL or OML procedure for execution |
CMD | Issue a NetMaster command |
GLOBALV | Access a NetMaster global variable |
VARTABLE | Access and manipulate vartables |
WRITE | NetMaster WRITE command |
EXECIO | NetMasters implementation of EXECIO |
NetView Emulation
Unicenter NetMaster Release 11 will provide emulation of many commonly used NetView commands, functions and PIPE stages. This allows many customers REXX programs that use the ADDRESS NETVIEW and ADDRESS NETVASIS environments to run under NetMaster without change. Additionally, an NCCF "look-alike" facility provides a familiar user interface to users who may be experienced with NetView's NCCF.
NetView Emulation is an aid to users who are experienced in programming NetView REXX. Full support of NetView REXX under NetMaster will not be provided, we have focused our attention on the most commonly used commands which will provide maximum benefit to our customers. As a result the number of NetView REXX programs that can run unchanged under NetMaster will vary from site to site.
NetView Emulation offers long term NetMaster users completely new functionality which can simplify complex programming tasks. For example, the PIPE command, and its associated stages, is now available in NetMaster. PIPE provides the capability to solve a complex problem by dividing it into a series of smaller steps. Users with no experience with NetView should consider PIPE, and other emulated commands, when writing code under Unicenter NetMaster Release 11.
The following tables can be used to determine the extent of NetView Emulation delivered in Release 11:
NetView commands supported in Release 11:
AFTER | ALLOCATE | AT | BFRUSE | CALC |
CLEAR | CLOSE | D,F,V | DATE | DEBUG |
DISPFK | DOM | EVERY | EXCMD | FREE |
GLOBALV | GO | LIST | LISTA | LOGOFF |
MSG | MVS | NETVASIS | NM | PARSEL2R |
PURGE | RMTCMD | SUBMIT | WAIT | WTO |
WTOR |
NetView functions supported in Release 11:
APPLID | ASID | ATTENDED | AUTCONID | AUTOTASK |
CGI | CGLOBAL | CMDNAME | CURSYS | DCO |
DISC | DISTAUTO | DOMAIN | FNDMBR | HCOPY |
LU | MVSLEVEL | NETID | NETVIEW | OPID |
OPSYSTEM | PANEL | PARMCNT | PARTID | STCKGMT |
SUPPCHAR | SYSPLEX | TASK | TGLOBAL | TOWER |
TYPE | VTAM | VTCOMPID | WEEKDAYN |
NetView PIPE stages supported in Release 11:
$STEM | < | BETWEEN | CASEI | CHANGE |
CHOP | COLLECT | CONSOLE | CORRWAIT | COUNT |
DELDUPES | DROP | DUPLICAT | ENVDATA | EXPOSE |
FANIN | FANINANY | FANOUT | HOLE | JOINCONT |
KEEP | LITERAL | LOCATE | LOGTO | LOOKUP |
MEMLIST | MVS | NETVIEW | NLOCATE | NOT |
PICK | PIPEND | PRESATTR | QSAM | REVERSE |
SAFE | SEPARATE | SORT | SPLIT | STEM |
STRIP | SUBSYM | TAKE | TOSTRING | VAR |
VARLOAD | VTAM |
Notes:
REXX Analyzer
In Release 11, a REXX Analyzer program will also be available for execution from the Unicenter NetMaster environment. This will interrogate customer NetView REXX libraries and generate reports detailing:
Unsupported NetView capabilities
NetView message processing infrastructure such as MSGVAR and TRAP will not be supported by NetMaster. Message processing can be accomplished by converting REXX using these capabilities to emulated PIPE stages. Alternatively, the simple call of an NCL program to issue a command and extract variables from a response can be implemented.
NCCF Messages
It is not possible to replicate the message id of NetView NCCF messages. All messages produced by NetMaster will be documented. The user will find the last 4 characters of a NetMaster message will be the same as the equivalent NetView 1.3 message.
Emulated NetView Release
NetView 1.3 was the base for NetView emulation in Release 11. This means that the emulation of NetView commands, functions and PIPE stages will have similar characteristics to their usages under NetView 1.3.
ADDRESS TSO
Like NetView, the ADDRESS TSO environment will not be supported by NetMaster.
Calling other programs
ADDRESS LINK and ADDRESS ATTACH can be used to call 'standard' IBM programs using standard linkage. They allow you to execute an IBM utility such as IEBCOPY. NetMaster supports these environments as per the TSO/REXX description of ADDRESS LINK/ ADDRESS ATTACH.