Overview of FileMarvel
Typical online ISPF session
These screens show a typical file editing session for a file called YDG.V3R3.DEMOFILE. The displays show the data in a variety of formats from raw hexadecimal through to a display where the fields in the file are displayed using the field names and definitions from a COBOL or PL/I copybook.
Record display using COBOL copybook
In this display, the start of the record is displayed along with the field names and definitions from the COBOL copy book. Lengths of group items are displayed to make it easy to check that the layout of the data matches the copybook.
More information from the copybook display
In this display, we want to see the contents of more fields without all teh extra detail contained in the copybook. FileMarvel displays the field name and the contents of the field. Note that, for numeric items, the field is editied according to the PIC clause in the copybook, again providing strong visual confirmation that the file data does match what is expected.
An overview of the file
Here we are taking a quick snapshot of a group of records starting with the one with a key of 100. The data is unedited - you can point and shoot at any record to get a closer, more detailed look at it.
Hex display of records
The previous overview display showed us a number of records in character format but perhaps we wanted to see the numeric fields down the middle of the screen in more detail. Here we take a hexadecimal view of the first few bytes of a group of records.
Detailed hex view of a record
We want to see an entire record just in hex - here is the display that shows us that.
View selected fields
Often, when viewing and editing records, we want to see only those fields that our program uses. Here is a display where we have excluded the fields we aren't interested in. FileMarvel formats the fields in a column display with vertical lines separating the columns. A display like this makes it very easy to check a test job's output and far quicker than trying to make sense of an IDCAMS listing of the file.
