The apparent trailing blanks are an illusion. Whether the lines on the screen have trailing blanks or nulls is an option you or your installation set. I suspect if the file actually has trailing blanks, those will be on the screen, but I have no reason or desire to test it.
It's useful to think of "being in" the file while editing, but this is just an abstraction. ISPF allows you to lengthen or shorten records, add, delete, or change them, etc... You know this doesn't modify the file at all until you save, and that is when ISPF builds actual records. Pretending there are a bunch of blanks there on the screen is merely a cosmetic thing they decided to do. Nulls would have made more sense to me, but again, as this is merely cosmetic, I really don't care. Anyway, how the screen works and how the file is stored are two different things; it is due to ISPF's great design that it appears seamless. A counter-example is FM, which refuses to allow you to change the length of a record in a KSDS (as far I could tell, quite a while ago). sas On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 10:35 AM Steve Thompson <ste...@copper.net> wrote: > If it doesn’t pad out the lines, how would you write into those records, > after the last character (defined by the RDW)? > > This would be why, in my best guess, it is done like that with edit. > > Sent from my iPhone — small keyboarf, fat fungrs, stupd spell manglr. > Expct mistaks > > > > On Aug 8, 2019, at 8:46 AM, Steve Smith <sasd...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Option 1 defaults to "View" mode, which is like Edit. You can force it > to > > Browse mode on the entry screen, which will be what you get with the "B" > > operator. > > > > View. like Edit, shows blanks all the way to the maximum LRECL, even if > > they're not there. I don't know why. However, Edit will trim trailing > > blanks from all records on save, unless you prevent it from doing so. > > > > sas > > > > > >> On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 8:18 AM Cameron Conacher <conac...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > >> Good morning folks > >> Nothing urgent, but a question that has been nagging me for some time. > >> If I browse a variable length file using ISPF Option #1, and view with > HEX > >> ON, I see the record appears to be padded out to the maximum record > length > >> with spaces. > >> However, if I browse the file by selecting it from a 3.4 file list, the > >> records do not appear padded. > >> The actual records are not padded, so ISPF BROWSE OPTION #1 is doing > >> something just a little differently that the ISPF 3.4 list browse > >> operation. > >> > >> Nothing terrible, but I am wondering if there is some magic incantation > I > >> can use to make BROWSE operate the same from both entry points. > >> Is this just an undocumented "feature"? > >> > >> Thanks > >> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > >> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > >> > > > > > > -- > > sas > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- sas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN