Specifying command actions dynamically

You can also specify a variable as the value for the ACTION attribute of the CMDACT tag. ISPF substitutes the value of the variable at run time when the command is processed. The runtime value of the variable must be one of the ISPF-supported command actions. You specify the variable using the % notation in the ACTION value.

Here is an example where we specified the variable scroll as a command action for the SCROLL command. When the user issues the SCROLL command, ISPF obtains the value of the variable scroll from the variable pool to determine the action to be taken. The application can then control the direction of scrolling by setting the variable scroll to FORWARD or BACKWARD, or to NOP if no scrolling is possible.

<!doctype dm system>

<cmdtbl applid=abcd>
  <cmd name=scroll>scroll
    <cmdact action='%scroll'>
⋮
</cmdtbl>