The Formatted Data Editor provides similar functionality to that of the IBM File Manager ISPF data set editor. The Formatted Data Editor however improves upon that by taking advantage of the graphical user interface (GUI) provided by Rational® Developer for System z®. The editor offers two primary pages to view data. A formatted page which uses a template to display data with formatting applied and a character page which displays the data without any formatting. In addition to these two pages, the Formatted Data Editor also features three formats to view the data in. A table format, single record format, and hex format which displays the data in hexadecimal. The formats in the Formatted Data Editor are like those provided in IBM File Manager. Given the same data set and template, the data will be formatted and displayed in the same way as the IBM File Manager data editor. For more information about IBM File Manager's ISPF data set editor, see the IBM File Manager for z/OS® User's Guide and Reference (SC19-2495).

The following topics and their subtopics provide an overview of the core features of the Formatted Data Editor: