FINDNOT primary command

The FINDNOT command is used in the FCH Utility to return a list of members of a data set which do NOT contain a specified character string. It can only be used for a PDS or PDS/E data set.

The FINDNOT command can be abbreviated to FINDN or entered as FN. The FNX command displays an Extended Command Entry panel, in which you can enter long arguments that may not otherwise fit within the Command line (see Handling long strings in FIND for more information).

Note: It is not possible to use multiple FINDNOT commands in the input stream for batch processing. Similarly, it is not possible to combine FIND and FINDNOT commands in the batch input stream.

Syntax

Figure 1. Syntax in the Find/Change Utility

1 FINDNot
1 FN
1 FNX
2 string
1  %OR clauses
1  %AND clauses
3? col1?col2
OR clauses

1 + 
2.1 |
2.1 OR
1string
AND clauses

1 + 
2.1 &
2.1 AND
1string
string
Search string. The string must be no more than 100 characters long. The string can be:
  • a character string not starting or ending with a quotation mark and not containing any embedded blanks or commas. The case of the string is ignored. Uppercase and lowercase representations of the same character match. For example, Mixed string matches MIXED string.
  • a character string enclosed in quotation marks. The string can contain blanks and commas. The case of the string is ignored.
  • C followed by a character string enclosed in quotation marks (C'Frog'), or a character string enclosed in quotation marks followed by C ('Frog'C). The string can contain blanks and commas. The string must match exactly (including case).
  • X followed by a hexadecimal string enclosed in quotation marks (X'C1C2').
AND and OR clauses
You can specify multiple arguments by using OR-clauses or AND-clauses. If OR-clauses are used, a member is excluded when any of the arguments are found in the member. If AND-clauses are used, a member is excluded only if all of the arguments are found in any line of the member. The maximum number of arguments that can be specified is 16.

In preparing a FINDNOT command in a batch run, you can use more than one line to specify multiple arguments. To indicate that a line is continued, the last item on the line is a blank delimited comma.

col1 and col2
You can limit the columns that are searched by the FINDNOT command by entering a pair of column numbers indicating the first and last columns to be searched. The string is found if it is completely contained within the designated columns. For example, FINDNOT xxx 1 20 excludes a member if it contains any records with the string "xxx" within columns 1-20.

If columns are not specified, the columns to be searched default to the columns defined by the BOUNDS line. If a single column is specified, the character string must start in the specified column. If the second column specified is larger than the record size, the record size is used.

Availability

Related tasks and examples