Strobe Commands

With Strobe commands, you can add, change, or delete measurement requests, and control measurement session operations.

A command consists of:

• The command itself, followed by one or more spaces
• A required positional operand that identifies the job in which the target job step or program executes by job name, request number, or TSO user ID, followed by a comma (,)
• Additional operands consisting of a keyword parameter followed optionally by an equal sign “=” and a subparameter keyword or a value that you supply, delimited by commas and terminated by one or more spaces
• An optional comment beginning with a semicolon (;)

Defining Command Syntax

The following figure shows an example of Strobe command syntax.

Strobe Command Language Syntax

The previous figure shows the command ADD, the required positional operand myjob, and the operands STEP=* and LIMIT=(1,QUIT). Within the LIMIT=(1,QUIT) operand, LIMIT is the parameter keyword and 1 and QUIT are subparameter keywords.

Conventions for Command Examples

The command syntax example shown in the previous figure and in examples throughout this chapter use the following conventions:

• Commands and keywords are capitalized.
• Lowercase words represent the names of variables for which you substitute specific values.
• Brackets [ ] enclose optional operands.
• Alternatives within operands are grouped within braces { } and separated by vertical bars.

List of Command

The Strobe command language provides the following functions to manage measurement sessions:

ADD	Add a measurement request. AutoStrobe users can specify a schedule for a measurement request using the STARTTIME and STARTDATE operands. For information about setting up a schedule using these operands, see Using AutoStrobe Scheduling.
CHANGE	Change a measurement request.
LIST	List requests and messages.
DELETE	Delete a measurement request or a request group element.
SEND	Send a command to an active measurement session.
END	End Strobe command language operations.

Other keywords, positional operands, and subparameter keywords are described later in this section.

Keyword Abbreviations

The Strobe command language allows you to use any unique abbreviation for a command, keyword, or subparameter keyword within its frame of reference. All the Strobe operations constitute one frame of reference. In turn, each command has a frame of reference that governs a set of operands. Likewise, each operand for that command governs a set of subparameter keywords.

For example, in the previous figure L is an acceptable abbreviation for the LIMIT keyword because no other keyword begins with the letter L. However, ST is not an acceptable abbreviation for the STEP keyword because ST could also be the abbreviation for STRBLIB or STRBDD. An acceptable abbreviation for STEP would then be STE. When you choose an abbreviation, remember that you must supply as many consecutive characters as required to make the operand unique.