Do you ever create your own CL command definition (*CMD) objects? If you do, would you like to add online command help for your commands like IBM commands have? This article shows you how to use the Generate Command Documentation (GENCMDDOC) command to quickly and easily do just that.

Background

"To know how far you have come, you must know where you started." This may be a famous quote, but as far as I know, I made it up. And it applies really well to the subject of this article!

IBM added support for CL command online help in the first release of OS/400 in 1988. Command help was shipped in objects called "panel groups." The source used to define the help was a generalized markup language called User Interface Manager (UIM). In the second release of OS/400 in 1989, IBM published documentation of UIM syntax, and a new CL command, CRTPNLGRP, was shipped to compile UIM source and create a panel group. This made it possible for customers to add online help to their own commands. Possible, yes...easy, no! The Application Display Programming book documented UIM syntax, but there were no examples that showed how to put the various UIM tags together to create command help that looked similar to the online help for IBM CL commands.

Breakthrough

Fast-forward to the year 2004 and release V5R3 of i5/OS. IBM changed how it produced all of the CL command documentation shipped in the Information Center. Tools written in Java and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) invoked i5/OS APIs that retrieved command description information and command help information as XML documents. These tools generated the HTML command documentation files for the Information Center, and IBM shipped the Java and XSLT code in i5/OS. Finally, a new CL command, Generate Command Documentation (GENCMDDOC), was written to provide an easy-to-use CL command interface to let customers use these new tools.

Four Easy Steps to Add Online Command Help

Adding online command help to a CL command requires four basic steps:

1. Choose the command you want to add online help to.
2. Run the GENCMDDOC command to create the UIM outline.
3. Edit the UIM source generated by GENCMDDOC.
4. Create the panel group and connect it to the command.

Of these four steps, the time-consuming one is editing the UIM source, but as you will see, almost all of the drudge work has been done for you, leaving the creative part of writing the descriptive text for you to complete.

Step #1: Choose the Command You Want to Add Online Help To

The GENCMDDOC command generates a file that contains a set of UIM source tags for a command, using the existing *CMD object as input. I've used a sample command named Display Object List (DSPOBJL) for demonstration purposes. The code below shows the command definition source statements for the DSPOBJL command.

Step #2: Run the GENCMDDOC Command to Create the UIM Outline

The GENCMDDOC command can generate two forms of output. In this article, GENCMDDOC is used to create a UIM source member that you will edit in step #3. Change the CMD and TODIR parameters to reference your work library name (instead of MYLIB) and the command for which you want to generate online help. The following code shows the GENCMDDOC command string that will generate a UIM source member for the DSPOBJL command in library MYLIB; the UIM output will be stored in member DSPOBJL of source file QPNLSRC in library MYLIB.

Patience Is a Virtue
The CPP for GENCMDDOC is written in C++ and will start a second job that creates a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) where the Java and XSLT code runs. When the Java code finishes, the JVM is ended. On older or smaller System i machines, starting and ending a JVM can take a minute or so.

Check It Out!
The source member generated by GENCMDDOC should contain valid UIM source that has help for the command and each command parameter, as well as sample example and error message sections. If you are eager to see the F1 (Help) key work for your command, go ahead and skip to step #4, and use a CL command prompter to verify that your command has online help. You will need to come back to step #3 to edit the online help to make it really "helpful."

Step #3: Edit the UIM Source Generated by GENCMDDOC

For editing the UIM source member, use whichever source editor you like. If you want to edit in a 5250 emulation session, you can run the Start Source Entry Utility (STRSEU) command. If you want to use a GUI source editor, you can use the Remote Systems Explorer (RSE) editor function of WDSc.

Verifying the Edited UIM
If you jumped to Step #4 to check out what the GENCMDDOC-generated command help looked like, you've already hooked your command up to your panel group. The connection from the command to the panel group is by name, so you can replace the help panel group with a more-complete version and not break the connection. This means that you can do your UIM editing a bit at a time rather than all at once. This is especially important if you haven't worked with UIM source before and you want to build your comfort level with UIM.

Whether you want to make a few UIM source changes and run the CRTPNLGRP command to recreate the panel group or do them all at once before running CRTPNLGRP, that's up to you. Don't be overly concerned if the panel group creates but puts warning messages in the spooled file listing. However, if the panel group is not created, you will need to look at the spooled file (e.g., by running the WRKSPLF command) and find and fix the UIM syntax errors.

Note that the default for the REPLACE parameter on the CRTPNLGRP command is *YES, so your new panel group will be created in the specified library, and the old panel group will be moved to library QRPLOBJ.

Let's Start Editing
The next part of this article goes into detail on editing the four sections of command online help: command-level help, parameter-level help for each command parameter, command examples, and command error messages. Ready?

Command-Level Help
If you have worked with HTML tags, you know that an HTML tag starts with a less-than sign (<) and ends with a greater-than sign (>). For UIM tags, the tag starts with a colon (:) and ends with a period (.). UIM tag names are not case-sensitive; I show the tag names in all lowercase, but you could use uppercase or mixed case.

The very first generated UIM tag in the UIM source member is the :pnlgrp tag, and the very last tag is the :epnlgrp tag. Between those two tags, you will find a set of help modules. Each help module begins with a :help tag and ends with a :ehelp tag. The first help module in the UIM source generated by the GENCMDDOC command is the command-level help module. Notice that the name attribute on this help module matches the name of the command object. You should not need to modify the :help tag or the line that follows the :help tag.

The :p tag is used to begin a paragraph, similar to a

tag in HTML. GENCMDDOC generates a :p tag at the beginning of the first sentence of the command-level help. Since GENCMDDOC is not smart enough to know what the command does, it generates a text marker of <...>, which you need to replace with the remainder of the first sentence and as many more sentences as you feel are needed. To start a new paragraph, add another :p tag. Note that UIM does not have an end-of-paragraph tag like you would find in HTML or XML; one paragraph implicitly ends when another paragraph begins.

IBM command-level help is where command-level restrictions are documented. The generated UIM source contains a sample Restrictions list showing command-level restrictions like what authorities are required to run the command, any prerequisite commands, threadsafe restrictions (if conditionally threadsafe), etc. The Restrictions heading is between the :hp2 and :ehp2 tags, which will cause the text to appear in bold ("hp" stands for "highlighted phrase"). The list begins with a :ul tag and ends with a :eul tag ("ul" stands for "unordered list"), with a :li tag for each list entry ("li" stands for "list item"). Note that there is no end-of-list-item tag to end a list item. If your command has no command-level restrictions, it is recommended that you delete this list (including the Restrictions heading) rather than say "None." Remember that information about a specific parameter might be better added in the parameter-level help module for that parameter.

As you might have figured out already, putting .* in the first two columns makes any line a comment. This can be handy if you want to comment out some UIM tags rather than delete them.

The code below shows what the first part of the GENCMDDOC-generated command-level help looked like:

This code shows what it might look like after editing:

Parameter-Level Help
Following the command-level help module in the UIM source will be parameter-level help modules, one for each parameter defined for the command. Of course, if your command has no parameters, there won't be any parameter-level help modules. GENCMDDOC does not generate parameter-level help modules for hidden or constant parameters.

Most of the generated UIM source statements do not require any editing, including the :help and :xh3 tags that begin the help module. Notice that the name attribute on each parameter-level help module is the command name followed by a forward slash followed by the keyword name associated with the parameter. The :xh3 tag shows the parameter title text, which will appear when viewing Extended Help. A :p (paragraph) tag is generated to start the description of the purpose of the parameter. You can replace the generated <...> text marker with as much text as you think is needed to explain the purpose of the parameter. To start a new paragraph, just add another :p tag.

A couple of UIM tags that you might find handy when documenting parameter restrictions or inter-parameter dependencies are :nt and :ent, which generate the highlighted word "Note:", followed by the text you enter after the :nt tag; no :p tag is needed before the note text.

The :parml (parameter list) tag marks the start of the list of parameter choices. There must be a matching :eparml (end parameter list) at the end of the list. There is a :pt (parameter term) tag and a :pd (parameter definition) tag for each parameter choice. Generally, you can leave the :pt tags as they are generated. Following each :pd tag will be a <...> text marker where you can describe the meaning of a specific value (e.g., what *YES means) or describe what is expected for a user-defined value. The :pt and :pd tags do not have matching end tags.

You will see :pk and :epk, or :pv and :epv tags bracketing the parameter value on the :pt. tags. The :pk tag is generally used for the default value and any value specified in the command definition for a SNGVAL (single value), SPCVAL (special value), or VALUE. The :pv tag is used when a user-defined value is allowed (e.g., an object name or a value within a defined range). In online help, text bracketed by :pk/:epk will be boldface, and text bracketed by :pv/:epv will be underlined. In the generated help HTML, text bracketed by :pk/:epk will be boldface, and text bracketed by :pv/:epv will be italicized. Default parameter values will be preceded by :pk def, which causes the value to be boldface and underlined.

The code below shows what the first part of a GENCMDDOC-generated parameter-level help module looked like:

And this is what it might look like after editing:

Examples Help
After the parameter-level help modules, you'll find a "special" help module where you can provide examples of valid command strings that demonstrate the capabilities of the command. Notice that the name attribute of the example's help module is the command name followed by a forward slash followed by COMMAND/EXAMPLES'.

While it is not recommended to have online command help be a tutorial on how to use the command, providing lots of good examples can save the command user from having to search for additional documentation on using the command.

If your command has no parameters or maybe one simple parameter, you should only need a single example. As the command complexity grows, you'll have to decide how many variations to provide as examples.

These examples can also encourage users of your command to use the command the way you intended. It won't make your command foolproof (because fools can be so ingenious), but it can help, because if the example command string is basically performing the desired function, users will copy and paste it to the command line and prompt it to modify it to their particular situation.

You don't need to modify the :help and :ehelp tags that GENCMDDOC generated for you, including the :xh3 tag. A :p (paragraph) tag is generated for each example title, with the title text bracketed by :hp2/:ehp2 (highlighted phrase) tags. If you have only one example, this title can be deleted. Edit the title text to describe the function performed by the command example.

The actual command string starts with a :xmp (example) tag and ends with a :exmp tag. Text between the :xmp and :exmp tags will be treated as preformatted text (similar to

 and 

And this is what it might look like after editing:

Error Messages Help
The last help module in the generated UIM source is the "special" error message help module. This help module should contain the list of escape, notify, and status messages that the command will signal. This information will let someone using the command know what messages can be monitored for by using the MONMSG command. The name attribute of the error messages help module is the command name followed by forward slash followed by ERROR/MESSAGES'.

For most of your commands, you will only need to list *ESCAPE messages signaled from your CPP; very few i5/OS commands signal *NOTIFY and *STATUS messages to the program that called the command. IBM convention is to not list CPF0001 or CPF9999 in this list.

The GENCMDDOC command doesn't know what error messages are signaled by a command; it generates a sample list that you need to edit. The generated :help tag and its associated :xh3 tag include a reference to message CPX0005 using the &msg built-in function. The &msg built-in function will cause the first-level text of the specified message to be included in the UIM help text when you run the CRTPNLGRP command. The first-level text of CPX0005 is "Error messages for."

A :p (paragraph) tag is generated for the heading that precedes the list of messages. The heading generated by GENCMDDOC is for the list of *ESCAPE messages. If your command signals any monitorable *STATUS or *NOTIFY messages, you could copy this paragraph and definition list. The heading includes a reference to CPX0006. The first-level text of CPX0006 is "messages."

The set of messages begins with a :dl (definition list) tag. For each message in the list, there is a :dt (definition term) tag that identifies the message and a :dd (definition) tag that should contain the message text. The list of messages generated by GENCMDDOC shows two things:

How to use the UIM &msg built-in to pull in the message text—The &msg built-in function normally has three parameters: the message identifier, the message file name, and the message file library name (or *LIBL). Here, a fourth parameter, nosub, is specified. This is done so that blanks are not substituted for message replacement variables (e.g., &1) in the message text.
Some i5/OS generic messages that you might want to use in your CPP—All of these messages have message identifiers that begin with CPF98.

The following code shows what the first part of the GENCMDDOC-generated command error messages help module looked like:

This is what it might look like after editing:

Step #4: Create the Panel Group and Connect It to the Command

When you are ready to create the command help panel group from the UIM source, you will run the CRTPNLGRP command. The code below shows the CRTPNLGRP command string that will create a panel group object named DSPOBJL in library MYLIB. In this example, the *PNLGRP object name is the same as the *CMD object name, but the panel group name could be different from the command name.

Find and Fix UIM Compiler Errors
The UIM compiler is fairly picky about syntax and will not create a panel group if you've left off tag-delimiter periods or you've mismatched quotes on tag attributes, like help module names. The good news is that those tags are generally ones that are generated for you and that you don't need to modify. Also, the UIM compiler is pretty good at identifying the line where an error occurred and determining what needs to be fixed. Use WRKSPLF to find the UIM compiler spooled file and look for severe errors. The UIM compiler may send a lot of warnings about potential problems with translation space; generally, you can ignore these warning messages.

Connect Your Command to Your Panel Group
In order for i5/OS online help support to find the online help for your command, the command object needs to point to the panel group that holds the help modules for the command. If you haven't done so already, change your command to have a help identifier (HLPID parameter) that is the same as the command name, and set the name of the online help panel group (HLPPNLGRP parameter) for your command.

The following code shows the CHGCMD command string that will change command DSPOBJL in library MYLIB so that the operating system will look for its command help in panel group DSPOBJL in library MYLIB. By specifying HLPID(*CMD), the operating system will expect that all of the help modules associated with the DSPOBJL command begin with DSPOBJL.

Use the 5250 Prompter to See the Online Help
Now you can test your command help from the CL command prompter screen or from a command line; to see all of the help modules, just type the command name on a command line and press F1 (Help). Chances are good that when you see all the online help, you will notice a few things that you want to fix or change, such as spelling or grammar.

Go back to step #3 to add or change online help. Use a source file editor to change the UIM source and run the CRTPNLGRP command again.

It is not necessary to delete the old panel group before creating the updated panel group. The CRTPNLGRP command has a replace object (REPLACE parameter) option that defaults to *YES. If the panel group creates successfully, the old panel group is renamed and moved to the QRPLOBJ library.

It is not necessary to run the CHGCMD command again. The association between the command and the help panel group is by name. This means that if the old panel group is replaced, the next time you look at the command help, the online help support will pull the help text from the newer version of the panel group.

Congratulations! You've successfully added online help to your command!

Getting "Fancy"

Once you've created online help for your command, you have everything you need to create HTML documentation. The second part of this article will show you how to create HTML documentation for your commands that looks like the HTML command documentation files for IBM commands in the IBM Information Center for System i5. Part two will also cover topics that let you share messages text and help text across the command help for multiple commands to ensure consistency and reduce online help development and maintenance.

More Information on UIM Tags

The Application Display Programming book is still the most complete reference for UIM. Appendix A describes all of the UIM tags used in this article and many more. The PDF for this book can be found in the V5R4 Information Center under the main topic Printable PDFs and Manuals.

Guy Vig is a senior software engineer with IBM Systems and Technology Group and has worked in Rochester, Minnesota, and Toronto, Ontario, on various parts of the operating system and compiler products for System/38, AS/400, iSeries, and System i5 since joining IBM in 1978. As the “CL Architect,” he has worked on revitalizing CL on System i. Guy can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..