CBL - CBLi Overview

Note: CBLi is NOT a separately licensable product but is included within the SELCOPY and CBLVCAT licence agreements.

CBL software products, SELCOPY and CBLVCAT, are packaged with the CBL Interactive environment (CBLi) which includes additional productivity tools and is a vehicle for interactive execution of both products on MVS, VSE and CMS systems.

Use of CBLi is included, at no additional cost, within the SELCOPY and CBLVCAT licence agreements.

CBLi was first made GA at release 1.10 on 2004/12/06, and made available to all SELCOPY and CBLVCAT users to download as a separately installable product bundle.

CBLi is now integral to the SELCOPY and CBLVCAT products and is installed automatically as part of the latest SELCOPY and CBLVCAT install procedures.

OpSys	Environment	Startup Command
MVS	ISPF	Enter TSO CBLii (double "i") on the ISPF command line.
	TSO/E	Enter the command CBLi at the READY prompt.
	VTAM	Enter LOGON APPLID(CBLiVTAM) on a VTAM USS screen.
VSE	VTAM	Enter LOGON APPLID(CBLiVTAM) on a VTAM USS screen.
VM	CMS	Enter the command CBLi on the CMS command line.

Figure 1. CBL Interactive Environment Main Window.

CBLi is a productivity aid designed to provide users with a powerful, intuitive, multi-windowed environment within the 3270 terminal display, in which to launch projects and manage files.

Detailed information on CBLi window operation and supported command reference is available in the CBLi Reference and User Guide and accompanying CBLe Text Editor Manual and Structured Data Edit Manual.

Interactive Environment key features follow.

Windowed Environment within the 3270 Display

This gives the user the ability to display information (edited views, lists, etc.) in any number of easily navigable windows concurrently.

The windowed environment supports:

Resizable and moveable windows that may be tiled, cascaded, minimised, maximised, restored and customised.
Drop-down and pop-up menus.
Drop-down Window List.
Hot key in and out of ISPF split screens.

Figure 2. CBL Interactive Environment Window Resize.

Disaster Recovery Aid

Not only does CBLi execute natively as an ISPF application, in CMS and TSO/E, but also as a VTAM application in MVS or VSE.

SELCOPY and CBLi VTAM installed on a DR volume would provide users with a working environment that includes system information windows, a text editor (CBLe) and job submission capabilities without the need for a MVS TSO or VSE ICCF.

Interactive SELCOPY execution

Allows the user to debug SELCOPY job streams by stepping through control statements, setting break points and displaying changes to workarea storage, @ pointers, etc.

See Interactive SELCOPY for a more detailed discussion.

SELCOPY IDE 43x80
Figure 3. SELCOPY Interactive Window.

Interactive CBLVCAT execution

Allows the user to generate dynamic reports of VTOC/Catalog contents and IDCAMS tuning recommendations for VSAM data sets.

See Interactive CBLVCAT for a more detailed discussion.

Figure 4. CBLVCAT Interactive File TUNE.

CBLe Text Editor

A function rich, user configurable text editor including support for:

Interfaces for both ISPF-Edit (PDF) and KEDIT/XEDIT compatibility.
MDI (Multiple Document Interface) Edit display windows.
Command Line Interface (CLI) on all edit operations. (cf. ISPF Primary commands)
Configurable PFKeys and Edit environment.
Prefix area command support. (cf. ISPF Line commands)
Text blocking as source for copy, move, delete, overlay, etc.
Simple VSAM data set editing.
REXX Edit Macro support, including EXTRACT feature to automatically create REXX stem variables.
Automatic translation of System Symbols, environment and user-defined variables.
ALLOC command (for when TSO is not available.)
SUBMIT job streams to batch.
TASK command to start a program as a sub-task.

CBLe also includes the CMDTEXT function, a unique point-and-shoot facility enabling execution of any system (CMS/TSO/ISPF), CBLi or CBLe text edit command stored as a text string in any editable file. This feature has brought about the use of CMX files (files containing related command strings and comment text) as "command-centres" for specific projects and tasks.

Figure 5. CBLe Text Editor.

Structured Data Edit

Use SDE to edit/browse files mapped using COBOL or PL/1 copybooks etc, displaying columns of data under meaningful headings with automatic interpretation of numeric data-types, etc.

Display records in Table or Single-Record (vertical zoom) formats, HEX or unformatted
Simultaneous display of multiple record-types, with column headings repeated for each record group.
Edit multiple files.
Display multiple (format independent) views of any file.
Work with a subset of fields using SQL-style SELECT to specify a subset of columns and their order.
Work with a subset of records, selected according to one or more record-type.
Work with a subset of records, selected according to data content using ISPF-style FIND/EXCLUDE and SQL-style WHERE commands.
Copy and reformat records from one file/structure to another.
Extract data and structures to REXX variables used in macro procedures.

Structured Edit
Figure 6. CBLe Text Editor.

List Windows

Display configurable rows of information for various list types that include:

DASD Volumes.
VTOC contents.
Cataloged Datasets.
Library Members.
Enqueued Resources.
Allocated Datasets.

Figure 7. List Windows.

All list windows support the following:

Point-and-shoot on column headers to sort column data.
SQL style syntax for select, sort and filter.
Prefix commands to copy, rename, delete, generate IDCAMS LISTCAT output, etc. as appropriate.

List windows provide a simple method of system navigation allowing the user to intuitively drill-down through lists of DASDs, VTOCs, Datasets, Libraries and finally, edit or browse a dataset or library member.

List windows are accessible via the List main menu item and directly via parameter driven command line interface commands. e.g.