os_390.txt For Vim version 9.2. Last change: 2026 Feb 14 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Ralf Schandl zOS z/OS OS390 os390 MVS This file contains the particulars for the z/OS UNIX version of Vim. 1. ASCII/EBCDIC dependent scripts zOS-has-ebcdic 2. Putty and Colors zOS-PuTTY 3. Motif Problems zOS-Motif 4. Bugs zOS-Bugs 5. Limitations zOS-limitations 6. Open source on z/OS UNIX zOS-open-source Contributors: The port to z/OS UNIX was done by Ralf Schandl for the Redbook mentioned below. Changes, bug-reports, or both by: David Moore Anthony Giorgio and others ============================================================================== 1. ASCII/EBCDIC dependent scripts OS390-has-ebcdic zOS-has-ebcdic For the internal script language the feature "ebcdic" was added. With this you can fix ASCII dependent scripts like this: if has("ebcdic") let space = 64 else let space = 32 endif ============================================================================== 2. PuTTY and Colors OS390-PuTTY zOS-PuTTY If you see problems with syntax highlighting or screen corruptions when you connect to z/OS using Putty, try the following: - Configure Putty as "vt220" terminal (Connection->Data) - Add the following 3 lines to your vimrc: set t_AB=[4%p1%dm set t_AF=[3%p1%dm set t_CO=8 Note: is one character use <C-V><Esc> to enter it. ============================================================================== 3. Motif Problems OS390-Motif zOS-Motif Note: Seen with Vim 6.*, never tested since. It seems that in porting the Motif library to z/OS, a translation from EBCDIC to ASCII for the accelerator characters of the pull-down menus was forgotten. Even after I tried to hand convert the menus, the accelerator keys continued to only work for the opening of menus (like <Alt-F> to open the file menu). They still do not work for the menu items themselves (like <Alt-F>O to open the file browser). There is no solution for this yet. ============================================================================== 4. Bugs OS390-bugs zOS-Bugs - Vim will consistently hang when a large amount of text is selected in visual block mode. This may be due to a memory corruption issue. Note that this occurs in both the terminal and gui versions. ============================================================================== 5. Limitations OS390-limitations zOS-limitations - No binary search in tag files. The program /bin/sort sorts by ASCII value by default. This program is normally used by ctags to sort the tags. There might be a version of ctags out there, that does it right, but we can't be sure. So this seems to be a permanent restriction. - The cscope interface ( cscope ) doesn't work for the version of cscope that we use on our mainframe. We have a copy of version 15.0b12, and it causes Vim to hang when using the "cscope add" command. I'm guessing that the binary format of the cscope database isn't quite what Vim is expecting. I've tried to port the current version of cscope (15.3) to z/OS, without much success. If anyone is interested in trying, drop me a line if you make any progress. - No glib/gtk support. I have not been able to successfully compile glib on z/OS UNIX. This means you'll have to live without the pretty gtk toolbar. Disabled at compile time: - Multibyte support ( multibyte ) - Right-to-left mode ( rileft ) - Farsi key map ( Farsi ) - Arabic language support ( Arabic ) - Spell checking ( spell ) Never tested: - Perl interface ( perl ) - Hangul input ( hangul ) - Encryption support ( encryption ) - Langmap ('langmap') - Python support ( Python ) - Right-to-left mode ('rightleft') - TCL interface ( tcl ) ... ============================================================================== 6. Open source on z/OS UNIX OS390-open-source zOS-open-source If you are interested in other Open Source Software on z/OS UNIX, have a look at the following Redbook: Mike MacIsaac et al "Open Source Software for z/OS and OS/390 UNIX" IBM Form Number: SG24-5944-01 ISBN: 0738424633 http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/servers_eserver_zseries_zos_unix_redbook_sg245944.pdf Also look at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/ http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/library/IBM+Redbooks/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: