REXXresources

REXX Home

Origins

Mike Cowlishaw

Operating Systems

OS/2 VM OS/400 Windows TSO

Reference Material

IBM Documents Master Class Extensions

REXX for OS/2

REXX was part of the OS/2 operating system from the start. REXX command files have, by default, the file extension .CMD. OS/2 interprets the REXX code and stores it in an intermediate form for future re-use. The intermediate form is used the next time the script is run but if the source file changes, a new intermediate version is produced.

Bark to Byte was published in 1993 and is a useful guide on interfacing REXX with other applications and programming languages. It covers extending REXX by calling external (non-REXX) services, interfacing with C programs, multimedia, DB/2, etc.

The OS/2 version introduced linein and lineout as I/O functions as the VM utility, EXECIO, exists only in VM.