Course Description

This course is designed to teach you the basic skills required to write programs using the REXX language in z/OS. The course covers the TSO extensions to REXX and interaction with other environments such as the MVS console, running REXX in batch jobs, and compiling REXX.

Learning Journeys that reference this course:

• z/OS Systems Engineer
• z/OS Systems Operator

Objectives

• Write programs using the Rexx language
• Use various data parsing techniques
• Use built-in Rexx functions
• Create user-defined internal and external functions and subroutines
• Issue host commands from within Rexx execs
• Code programs that read and write data sets
• Use instructions and commands that manipulate the data stack
• Use Rexx debugging tools
• Write error-handling routines

Audience

This is an intermediate course for people who need to write and maintain Rexx programs in the z/OS system environment.

Prerequisites

You should be able to:

• Code basic Job Control Language statements
• Code in a programming language
• Create, alter, and delete data sets using TSO

These skills can be developed by taking:

• Fundamental System Skills of z/OS (ES10)
• A programming language course

Content

Day 1

• (01:00) Unit 1 - Introduction
• (01:30) Unit 2 - Getting started with REXX (start)
• (01:00) Lab exercise 1
• (01:00) Unit 2 - Getting started with REXX (finish)
• (01:00) Lab exercise 2
• (01:30) Unit 3 - Programming in REXX (start)

Day 2

• (01:00) Lab exercise 3
• (01:30) Unit 3 - Programming in REXX (finish)
• (01:00) Lab exercise 4
• (01:00) Unit 4 - Functions and subroutines (start)
• (02:00) Lab exercise 5

Day 3

• (01:00) Unit 4 - Functions and subroutines (finish)
• (01:00) Lab exercise 6
• (01:30) Unit 5 - Debugging and error handling
• (01:00) Lab exercise 7
• (01:00) Unit 6 - Executing host commands
• (01:30) Lab exercise 8

Day 4

• (01:30) Unit 7 - Compound variables and the data stack
• (01:30) Lab exercise 9
• (01:30) Unit 8 - Reading and writing data sets in REXX
• (01:00) Lab exercise 10
• (01:30) Unit 9 - The parse instruction

Day 5

• (01:30) Lab exercise 11
• (01:30) Unit 10 - Using REXX: REXX compiler, REXX in batch, MVS console commands
• (01:00) Lab exercise 12