In breaking the text into lines, BMS uses the following rules:
- 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.
- BMS copies your text character for character, including all blanks, with
two exceptions that occur at line end:
- If a line ends in the middle of a word, BMS fills out the current line
with blanks and places the word that would not fit in the first available
position of the next line. For this purpose, a "word" is any string
of consecutive nonblank characters.
- If two words are separated by a single blank, and first one fits on the
current line without leaving room for the blank, the blank is removed and
the next line starts at the beginning of the second word.
- 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.
- 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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