Using Grep to Search Source Physical Files
November 13, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Editor’s Note: You can find an update on this article here on the IT Jungle website.
Hey, Ted:
Thank you for your great tips. I devour them every time they arrive in my e-mail. Every question is like a mini-mystery novel. The case is out there, and I always want to know how the crime (ahem, the problem) is resolved. Even if I know the answer, it’s gratifying to see you provided a different approach to it.
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Today, however, I have a case for you.
I want to use grep’s wonderful search capabilities from my CL programs to search source physical file members. I can call my routines using the Start QSH (STRQSH) command, but I’m puzzled about how to retrieve the results of the search. Passing parameters to QSH scripts and utilities is easy, but I can’t find how to pass information from Qshell back to the CL caller.
— Luis
I’m glad you enjoy the tips. Thank you for the encouragement.
You can direct the output of grep to a disk file. The following command puts the output into member MYMBR of file MYFILE in library MYLIB.
grep 'x*' someinputfile >/qsys.lib/mylib.lib/myfile.file/mymbr.mbr
Then you can read the disk file to see whether there were any matches. Grep displays matching lines. I don’t know of any way to find out the position of the match.
— Ted
Thank you so much for your answer. It solves my problem. However, I am still wondering if there is some way to catch the result from a Qshell script. I am aware that Qshell scripts return a numeric value, such as zero for normal termination. For instance, if I enter the following on the command line:
QSH CMD(xyz)
I get the following message.
Command ended normally with exit status 127.
Do you think there is a way to catch that number?
— Luis
Try this solution. Substitute your library name for yourlib. Qtemp won’t work.
crtpf yourlib/qshoutput rcdlen(256)
crtpf yourlib/qsherror rcdlen(256)
QSH CMD('(xyz ; print $? >/qsys.lib/yourlib.lib/qshoutput.file/
qshoutput.mbr)
2>/qsys.lib/yourlib.lib/qsherror.file/qsherror.mbr')
Qshell attempts to run the xyz command. If xyz runs normally, the return code (exit status) will have the value zero. If xyz ends abnormally, the return code will be something other than zero. The print command copies the return code to file QSHOUTPUT. Use the mechanism of your choice to read it. Any error messages will be in QSHERROR.
— Ted
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