Prompting Messages

A prompting message indicates that you need to supply required information or that you supplied incorrect information. Prompting messages include a message identifier (message ID) and are documented in z/OS TSO/E Messages. If messages at your terminal do not display a message ID, you can change your profile with the PROFILE MSGID command to display message IDs. For more information about the PROFILE command, see Changing Your User Profile with the PROFILE Command.

Example
The CALL command requires the name of the data set it is to call. If you enter the CALL command without a data set name, the system prompts you for the data set name with a message. `READY CALL ENTER DATA SET NAME -`

Respond to prompting messages by typing the requested information and pressing the Enter key.

Example
If you were prompted for a data set name and the data set name was TEST(MYPGM), you would enter after the prompting message: `ENTER DATA SET NAME - test(mypgm)`

Some messages have additional levels of information available. To see additional information about a message, type a question mark (?) in the leftmost space under the message and press the Enter key.

Example
To see additional information about the following message, enter `?`. `ENTER DATA SET NAME - ?` You then see another message that might be: `ENTER DSNAME (MEMBER NAME)`

If the second message does not contain enough information, you can request another message to give you even more detail.

If you enter a question mark and there are no further messages, you receive the following message:

NO INFORMATION AVAILABLE

To stop a prompting sequence, enter the requested information or press the attention interrupt key (PA1) to cancel the command. Interrupting a Process describes the attention interrupt key.