Text lines

In breaking the text into lines, BMS uses the following rules:

  1. Ordinarily, each line starts with what appears to be a blank. On a 3270 device, this is the attributes byte of a field that occupies the rest of the line on the screen or printed page. For other devices, it is simply a blank or a carriage control character.

    An exception occurs if the task creating the output is running under a PROFILE that specifies PRINTERCOMP(YES) and the output device is a 3270 printer. In this case, no character is reserved at the beginning of each line. See PRINTERCOMP option.

  2. BMS copies your text character for character, including all blanks, with two exceptions that occur at line end:
  3. You can embed new-line (NL) characters and other print format orders as well as blanks to control the format, if the destination terminal is a printer. NLs and tabs are particularly useful with columnar data, and BMS does not filter or even interpret these characters. However, print format orders do not format displays; see CICS 3270 printers for more information about using them.
  4. You can also include set attribute (SA) order sequences in your output. (Each one sets the attributes of a single character in the data stream, as explained in The set attribute order.) BMS abends the task unless SA sequences are exactly three bytes long and represent a valid attribute type. However, if you use a valid SA sequence to a terminal that does not support the attribute, BMS removes the SA sequence and then sends the message. Attributes set with SA orders remain until overridden by subsequent orders or until another SEND TEXT command, which resets them to their default values.

    You should not include 3270 orders other than SA in your text. BMS treats them as display data and they do not format as intended; they may even cause a terminal error.

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