Editing in CA Ideal › Editing in CA Ideal › Editing Using Line Commands

Editing Using Line Commands

This section also describes the CA Ideal line commands that perform editing functions on individual lines or on a range of lines. Enter line commands in the six‑character sequence number field on the right or left of the screen. They can overlay the sequence number anywhere in the sequence number field. Edit multipliers are numbers attached to line commands that specify how many times to perform the editing function.

The following rules apply to using line commands.

• Symbols entered in the sequence number field that are not valid line commands result in an error. For example, the following command results in an error because QQ is not a valid line command.

  0QQ100
  

• A line can only contain one line command; however, up to 15 lines in the data can contain line commands.
• You can use line commands to edit a single line or a range of lines (two or more lines). For single lines, enter the line command in the sequence number field on the line to be affected. For a range of lines, line commands mark the beginning and end of the range (included in the range are the lines containing the line commands).
• After you specify the start of a range of lines with a line command, you can perform scrolling and other line commands before you specify the end of the range. A PENDING message displays on the message line for the line command that is pending. This message remains until a range is fully specified or, in the case of COPY and MOVE, you specify the destination. You can cancel a line command that is pending by the RESET line command, deleting the command, or typing over the command. RESET also cancels all other pending line commands from the data.
• The following rules and examples describe how CA Ideal distinguishes between multipliers attached to line commands and digits remaining in the sequence number field.
  • Ignore leading zeros and leading blanks.
  • If the cursor is not in the sequence number field, ignore digits that were not changed (that is, digits that are in the same location and have the same value as before the line command was entered).

    For example, the following line commands delete line number 003100:

    D03100
    00D100
    003D00
    00310D
    

    The SET EDIT MULTIPLIER command determines where to place the multiplier for a line command, to the right or to the left. When SET EDIT MULTIPLIER equals left, the same rules hold. For example, the following line commands repeat line 003100 three times:

    3R3100
    03R100
    

    However, 003R00 only repeats the line once; the 3 is ignored because it did not change the digit 3 from the sequence number.

    When SET EDIT MULTIPLIER equals right, if the cursor is not in the sequence number field, the same rules hold. For example, the following line command entries are correct for repeating line 003100 four times:

    R43100
    0R4100
    

    However, line commands are cursor sensitive when SET EDIT MULTIPLIER equals right. That is, CA Ideal interprets a line command to include all numbers between the line command and the cursor. In the following example, line 400 is replicated four times. (The cursor position is underlined.)

    000100
    000200
    000300
    00R400
    

    In the next example, line 400 is replicated forty times.

    000100
    000200
    000300
    00R400
    

    Remember, line commands with the multiplier on the left are not cursor sensitive.

    CA Ideal works this way because of the way in which the 3270 terminal works. When CA Ideal receives the panel with your editing commands, the 3270 returns the contents of the sequence number fields and whether the fields changed. This introduces an ambiguity‑if the digits in the sequence number area following your line command are not changed, is that because the digits were not typed or were the same digits typed over what was already there? If the sequence number field contains 000400, was the 40 typed or not?

    CA Ideal has to make an assumption, and the assumption is that:

• If you typed a multiplier with a line command, your cursor is immediately to the right of the last digit you typed.
• If you did not type a multiplier, then your cursor is immediately to the right of the line command or not in the sequence number area.

  This usually works fine. However, you might, for example, type a 4 and inadvertently move the cursor one space to the right, giving you 40 repetitions of your line instead of 4. To help protect against such mistakes, CA Ideal imposes a limit of 100 as a multiplier, and does not allow multipliers on the DELETE, COPY, and MOVE commands.