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I'm a new user who using mainframe, I have a file and I need to change all dots '.' in file with space, I was trying to write this statement on command 

change X'05' X'40' all

after I converted the file to hexdecimal, but It doesn't work. How can I change all the dots with space in file, in simple way please?

cschneid
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M..
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2 Answers2

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The dots are non-displayable characters. You can match them using picture strings in the ISPF editor (which is what I assume you're trying to use to edit the file?)

Try the command

change p'.' ' ' all

The "p'.'" part will match any non-displayable character and change it to a blank.

Hans Kilian
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Hans answer above will certainly change any non-displayable character to a space. However you need to make sure you really want to change all non displayable characters to a space. Turn HEX ON to look at the actual data. You can then do a F p'.' to find the non-displayable character(s) prior to changing it. Browse shows non-displayable characters as a dot. However Edit would replace the value with an attribute for display purposes and this keeps you from typing over the data. You have to turn on HEX mode to manually modify the non-displayable value or use the Change command as you were trying. Typically any hex value from x'00' - x'3F' would be non-displayable. So a

C P'.' X'40' ALL

would modify every one of those values to a space. This may or may not be desirable depending on the file.

Marv Knight
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