Writing and deleting messages (WTO, WTOR, DOM, and WTL)

The WTO and the WTOR macros allow you to write messages to the operator. The WTOR macro also allows you to request a reply from the operator. The DOM macro allows you to delete a message that is already written to the operator. Only standard, printable EBCDIC characters, shown in Table 1, appear on the MCS console. All other characters are replaced by blanks. If the terminal does not have dual-case capability, it prints lowercase characters as uppercase characters.

Table 1. Characters Printed or Displayed on an MCS Console
Hex Code	EBCDIC Character	Hex Code	EBCDIC Character	Hex Code	EBCDIC Character	Hex Code	EBCDIC Character

40	(space)	7B	#	99	r	D5	N
4A	>	7C	@	A2	s	D6	O
4B	.	7D	’	A3	t	D7	P
4C	<	7E	=	A4	u	D8	Q
4D	(	7F	"	A5	v	D9	R
4E	+	81	a	A6	w	E2	S
4F	\|	83	c	A8	y	E4	U
50	&	84	d	A9	z	E5	V
5A	!	85	e	C1	A	E6	W
5B	$	86	f	C2	B	E7	X
5C	*	87	g	C3	C	E8	Y
5D	)	88	h	C4	D	E9	Z
5E	;	89	i	C5	E	F0	0
5F	¬	91	j	C6	F	F1	1
60	-	92	k	C7	G	F2	2
61	/	93	l	C8	H	F3	3
6B	,	94	m	C9	I	F4	4
6C	%	95	n	D1	J	F5	5
6D	—	96	o	D2	K	F6	6
6E	>	97	p	D3	L	F7	7
6F	?	98	q	D4	M	F8	8
7A	:	A7	x	E3	T	F9	9
82	b

Note:

If the display device or printer is managed by JES3, the following characters are also translated to blanks:
| ! ; ¬ : "
The system recognizes the following hexadecimal representations of the U.S. national characters: @ as X'7C'; $ as X'5B'; and # as X'7B'. In countries other than the U.S., the U.S. national characters represented on terminal keyboards might generate a different hexadecimal representation and cause an error. For example, in some countries the $ character generates a X'4A'.

There are two basic forms of the WTO macro: the single-line form, and the multiple-line form.

The following should be considered when issuing multiple-line WTO messages (MLWTO).

By default, only the first line of a multiple-line WTO message is passed to the installation-written WTO exit routine. The user exit can request to see all subsequent lines of a multi-line message.
When a console switch takes place, unended multiple-line WTO messages and multiple-line WTO messages in the process of being written to the original console are not moved to the new console.

See z/OS MVS Programming: Assembler Services Reference IAR-XCT for an explanation of the parameters in the single-line and multiple-line forms of the WTO macro.