What the ISPF editor does

You can use the ISPF editor to create, display, and change data stored in ISPF libraries or other partitioned or sequential data sets with these characteristics:

Record Format (RECFM):
- Fixed or variable (non-spanned)
- Blocked or unblocked
- With or without printer control characters
Logical Record Length (LRECL):
- From 1 to 32760, inclusive, for fixed-length records
- From 5 to 32756, inclusive, for variable-length records.
  Note: For variable-length records, the amount of editable data in each record is 4 bytes less than the logical record length.

Generally, the editor truncates variable-length lines by removing blanks at the end of each line during a save. If a variable-length line is completely blank and has no line number, a blank is added so that the line length is not zero.

However, with the PRESERVE function, you can save the trailing blanks of variable-length files. The "Preserve VB record length" field on the Edit Entry panel and the PRESERVE edit and macro commands enable you to save or truncate the blanks as you prefer.