CICS

1.WHAT IS MULTITASKING?
MULTITASKING MEANS THAT THE OPERATING SYSTEM ALLOWS MORE THAN ONE
TASK TO BE EXCUTED CONCURENTLY REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE TASK USE THE
SAME PROGRAM OF DIFFERENT PROGRAMS.

2. WHAT IS MULTI THREADING ?

MULTITHREADING IS A TECHNIQUE USED BY CICS, THAT ALLOWS A SINGLE COPY
COPY OF AN APPLICATION PROGRAM TO PROCESS SEVERAL TRANSACTIONS
CONCURENTLY.

3. WHAT IS QUASI-REENTRANT PROGRAMS?

THE PROGRAM WHICH DOES NOT MODIFY ITSELF DURING EXCUTION. SO IT CAN RE-
ENTER TO ITSELF AND CONTINUE PROCESSING AFTER AN INTERRUPTION BY CICS.

4.WHAT IS THE PSEUDO CONVERSATION?

IN THE PSEUDO CONVERSATIONAL MODE THE CONVERSATION IS ACCOMPLISHED BY
MORE THAN ONE TASK.
HERE WHEN A PROGRAM OF TRANSACTION ATTEMTS A CONVERSATION WITH A
TERMINAL USER, IT TERMINATES THE TASK AFTER SENDING THE MESSAGE AND FREES
THE RESOURCES.WHEN THE USER COMPLETES THE RESPONSE THE NEXT TASK IS
AUTOMATICALLY INITIATED BY CICS.THIS TASK RECEIVES THE MESSAGES FROM THE
TERMINAL AND DO THE NECESSARY PROCESSING.FROM THE SYSTEM’S SIDE THIS
IS A MULTITASK OPERATION. BUT FOR USER IT IS A NORMAL CONVERSATION. THIS
IS WHY IT IS CALLED ‘PSEUDO-CONVERSATIONAL’.

5.WHERE THE RESPONSE CODE FOR THE LAST CICS COMMAND IS STORED?
EIBRCODE.

6.WHAT IS THE CICS HANDLE CONDITION?

THE CICS HANDLE CONDITION COMMAND ALLOWS AN APPLICATION PROGRAM TO
CHECK FOR EXCEPTIONS THAT MAY OCCUR WHEN CICS COMMANDS ARE EXCUTED.
THE HANDLE CONDITION COMMAND SPECIFIES WHICH CONDITIONS ARE TO BE
CHECKED AS WELL AS THE NAMES OF EXCEPTION ROUTINES.
EX: EXEC CICS HANDLE CONDITION
CONDITION(LABEL)
ERRO(LABEL)
END-EXEC.

7. WHAT IS EXEC INTERFACE BLOC (EIB)

CICS PROVIDES SYSTEM RELATED INFORMATION TO EACH TASK IN A FORM OF EXEC
INTERFACE BLOCK (EIB)
EX: EIBCALEN
EIBRCODE

8. WHAT IS LINK COMMAND?

LINK COMMAND PASSES CONTROL FROM THE ORIGINATING PROGRAM TO ANOTHER
PROGRAM AT ONE LOGICAL LOWER THAN THE CURRENT, AND EXPECTING THE
CONTROL RETURN BACK.

9.WHAT IS XCTL COMMAND?

XCTL TRANSFERS PROGRAM CONTROL FROM ONE APPLICATION TO ANOTHER AT THE
SAME LOGICAL LEVEL.
10.WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LINK AND XCTL?
ANSWERE S OF 8 & 9.

11. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE COMMAREA?

DATA CAN BE PASSED TO A CALLED PROGRAM USING THE COMMAREA OPTION OF THE
LINK AND XCTL COMMANDS IN A CALLING PRORAMM. VICE VERSA.

12. WHAT IS THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF PPT?

THE PRIMARY FUNCTION OF PPT IS TO REGISTER ALL APPLICATION PROGRAMS AND
BMS MAPS .

13. WHAT STARTBR COMMAND DOES ?

ESTABLISH A STARTING POINT FOR A BROWSE.

14. WHAT IS THE DEAD LOCK CONDITON?

WHEN ONE TRANSACTION NEEDS EXCLUSIVE USE OF SOME RESOURCE ,WHICH IS
ALREADY HELD BY ANOTHER TRANSACTION,WHICH IS WAITING FOR A TRANSACTION
EXCLUSIVELY HELD BY THE FIRST TRANSACTON, A DEAD LOCK OCCURS.

15. HOW YOU SOLVE THE DEAD LOCK SITUATION?

BY CANCELLING THE BOTH TRANSACTIONS.

16. WHAT ARE THE MAPSET , MAP , FIELD DEFINITION MACROS?

DFHMSD , DFHMDI, DFHMDF.

17. WHAT IS A SKIPPER FIELD?

WHEN DEFINING A FIELD USING DFHMDF IF YOU SPECIFY IN THE ATTRB OPTION ASKIP
THE CURSOR WILL SKIP TO THE NEXT UNPROTECTED FIELD. THIS IS THE SKIPPER FIELD.

18. WHAT ARE DIFFERENT WAYS AVAILABLE FOR A PROGRAM TO POSITION THE CURSOR
ON THE SCREEN?
A.) STATJC POSITIONING .: CODE THE INSERT CURSOR (IC) IN THE DFHMDF
MACRO.
B) RELATIVE POSITIONING : CODE THE CURSOR OPTION WITH A VALUE RELATIVE
TO ZERO.
C) SYMBOLIC POSITIONING: MOVE HIGH VALUES OR –1 TO THE FIELD IN THE
SYMBOLIC MAP AND CODE CURSOR ON THE SEND COMMAND.

19. WHAT IS THE MODIFIED (MDT)?

MDT IS A ‘1’ BIT ATTRIBUTE CHARACTER OF BMS FIELD.WHEN IT IS SET ON ,CICS
WILL TRANSMIT THE DATA CONTAINED IN THE ASSOCIATED MAP FIELD.

20.WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH THE MDT CAN BE SET ON?
MDT CAN BE SET ON 1.WHEN THE USER ENTERS DATA IN TO THE FIELD.
2.WHEN THE APPLICATION PROGRAM MOVES THE ‘DFHBMSFSE
TO THE ATTRIBUTE CHARACTER .
3. BY DEFINING IT IN THE BMS MACRO DEFINITION.

21. IF ‘IC’ IS SPECIFIED FOR MORE THAN ONE FIELD THEN WHERE WILL THE CURSOR WILL
BE POSITIONED?
AT THE LAST FIELD WITH IC.

22. WHAT ARE THE COMMANDS FOR SENDING AND RECEIVING DATA TO THE TERMINAL?
SEND AND RECEIVE.

23.WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN EIBCALEN IS EQUAL TO ZEROES?

 WHEN THE LENGTH OF THE COMMUNICATION AREA (EIBCALEN) IS EQUAL TO ZERO,
IT MEANS THAT NO DATA WAS PASSED TO THE APPLICATION.WHEN WORKING IN THE
PSEUDO-CONVERSATIONAL MODE, EIBCALEN CAN BE CHECKED FOR ZEROES AS A
WAY OF DETERMNING THE FIRST TIME USAGE OF THE PROGRAM.

24 WHAT IS THE LOGICAL UNIT OF WORK?

A ‘LUW’ SI ALL THE PROCESSING THAT HAPPENS BETWEEN TWO ‘SYNCPOINTS’.

25. THE DFHCOMMAREA IS USED TO PASS INFORMATION FROM ONE APPLICATION TO

ANOTHER .WHAT ARE SOME OTHER WAYS OF DOING THIS?
1. BY USING TSQ.
2. BY USING AN INTRAPARTITIONED TDQ.
3.BY USING THE TASK WORK AREA.
4.BY USING TCTUA.
5. THROUGH A FILE.

26.WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF ‘CEBR’ COMMAND?

TO VIEW THE CONTENTS OF TSQ AND TDQ.

27. WHAT IS THE ‘ ASRA’.?

ABEND DUE TO PROGRAM INTERRUPTION.

28. WHAT IS ROLL BACK?

RECOVERY OF RECOVERABLE RESOURCES TO THE LAST SYNC POINT.

29. WHAT IS THE ASK TIME COMMAND?

UPDATES THE EIB FIELDS ‘EIBDATE ‘ AND ‘EIBTIME’ WITH THE CURRENT DATE AND
TIME OF DAY STORED IN THE COMPUTER.

30. WHAT IS THE FORMAT TIME COMMAND ?

FORMAT COMMAND WILL TRANSFORM THE ABSOLUTE DATE AND TIME INTO
REQUIRED FORMATS LIKE ‘DDMMYY’ OR ‘YYMMDD’.

31. WHAT IS EIBCALEN AND HOW IS IT REPRESENTED?

EIBCALEN GIVES THE LENGTH OF DFHCOMMAREA. IT IS REPRESENTED BY S9(4) COMP.

32. WHAT IS MDT ?

MODIFIED DATA TAG - THIS IS ONE BIT OF AN ATTRIBUTE CHARACTER OF A BMS FIELD
WHICH INDICATES WHETHER THE SCREEN FIELD IN A MAP HAS BEEN MODIFIED.

33. WHAT IS KCP ?

.

34. WHAT ARE THE MAPSET, MAP AND FIELD DEFINITION MACROS?
DFHMSD, DFHMDI AND DFHMDF.

35. CAN WE VIEW TSQ OR TDQ? HOW?

YES. USING CEBR COMMAND.

36. HOW CAN YOU UPDATE A RECORD IN A VSAM/KSDS FILE?

BY USING THE REWRITE COMMAND. BUT BEFORE THE REWRITE COMMAND, YOU MUST
FIRST ISSUE A READ COMMAND WITH UPDATE OPTION.

37. WHAT IS ATI AND HOW IS IT USED?

ATI IS A FEATURE BY WHICH A CICS TASK CAN BE AUTOMATICALLY INITIATED WHEN
THE NUMBER OF RECORDS IN A TDQ REACHES A SPECIFIED TRIGGER LEVEL. FOR THIS A
TRANSACTION IDENTIFIER AND THE TRIGGER LEVEL HAVE TO BE ASSIGNED TO A
TRANSIENT DATA QUEUE (TDQ) BY MAKING APPROPRIATE ENTRIES IN THE DESTINATION
CONTROL TABLE (DCT) .

38. WHAT IS CWA AND HOW CAN YOU ACCESS CWA ?

CWA IS A USER-DEFINED STORAGE AREA COMMON TO ALL TASKS IN A CICS SYSTEM.
YOU CAN HAVE ACCESS TO CWA THROUGH THE EXEC CICS ADRESS COMMAND WITH
CWA OPTION.

39. IS IT POSSIBLE TO RUN A TSO JOB FROM CICS REGION ?

YES. WRITE THE JCL (80 BYTE JCK RECORDS) TO AN EXTRAPARTITION TDQ. THE LAST JCL
RECORD SHOULD BE /*. ONCE THE LAST RECORD IS WRITTEN THE BATCH JOB WILL BE
SUBMITTED. USE ENQUE AND DEQUE FACILITY ON THE TDQ TO SERIALIZE THE WRITES
TO THE QUEUE.

40. HOW CAN THE CURSOR BE POSITIONED IN THE SCREEN ?

STATIC POSITIONING : SPECIFY INSERT CURSOR (IC) IN THE DFHMDF BMS MACRO.
DIRECT OR RELATIVE POSITIONING : CODE THE CURSOR OPTION WITH A RELATIVE
VALUE TO ZERO.
SYMBOLIC POSITIONING : MOVE HIGH VALUES OR –1 TO THE FIELD LENGTH IN THE
SYMBOLIC MAP AND CODE CURSOR ON THE SEND COMMAND.

41. HOW CAN YOU SET ON THE MDT?

BY ENTERING DATA INTO THE FIELD
BY MOVING DFHBMSFSE TO THE ATTRIBUTE CHARACTER THOUGH THE APPLICATION
PROGRAM.
BY DEFINING IT IN THE MACRO DEFINITION.

42. CAN YOU FIND OUT THE NUMBER OF RECORDS DELETED WHILE DOING A MASS
DELETE USING GENERIC KEY?
YES. USE NUMREC (DATA AREA) OPTION WITH GENERIC KEY. AFTER THE DELETE IS
COMPLETED THE DATAAREA WILL CONTAIN THE NUMBER OF RECORDS THAT WERE
DELETED.

43. WHAT IS LOAD COMMAND? SITE AN EXAMPLE WHERE IT CAN BE USED?

LOAD COMMAND IS USED TO RETRIEVE AN OBJECT PROGRAM FROM DISK AND LOAD IT
INTO THE MAIN STORAGE. THE PROGRAM ISN’T EXECUTED, BUT JUST LOADED. IT CAN BE
USED FOR LOADING A CONSTANT TABLE.

44. WILL A PROGRAM LOADED USING LOAD COMMAND REMAIN IN STORAGE AFTER
YOUR TASK ENDS?
THE PROGRAM CAN BE KEPT IN THE STORAGE EVEN AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE
TASK, BY USING HOLD OPTION OF THE LOAD COMMAND.
EG: EXEC CICS PROGRAM(DATA-VALUE) SET(POINTER) HOLD END-EXEC.

45. WHAT IS DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTION PROCESSING ?

IT IS A FACILITY WHICH ALLOWS A CICS APPLICATION PROGRAM IN ONE CICS SYSTEM
TO PERFORM ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION WITH ANOTHER PROGRAM IN ANOTHER
SYSTEM.

Some more Questions (without answers)

1. How can you start a CICS Transaction other than by 'keying' the
'Transaction -id' at the terminal ?
2. What happens to resources supplied to a transaction when an XCTL
command
is executed ?

3. What are the 3 ways available for a program to position the cursor
on the screen ?

4. How the MDT ( Modified Data Tag) can be set on ?

5. What are the differences between Temporary Storage Queue (TSQ) and
Transient Data Queue (TDQ) ?

6. What are the ways to pass information from one application to another ?

7.a) What is the CICS Recovery & Restart and what are the facilities
used for it ?
b) What are CICS Recoverable Resources ?
c) What is Dynamic Transaction Backout ?
d) How the SYNC POINT Command with ROLL BACK option works ?
e) What is the difference between ' Dynamic log' and ' System Log' ?
f) Upon System Failure , how do you recover resources using '
System log' ?

8. a) How do you achieve " Transaction " security ?

b) How do you achieve " Resource " security ?

9. a) How do you define a " skipper field " & "stopper field" in BMS ? Where are there used ?
b) How do you include 'Symbolic Map ' in the Application Program and what are the fields
in the Symbolic Map ?
10. What are the different “Pseudo-conversational” techniques ?
CICS QUESTIONS (OBJECTIVE)

1. Map Fail occurs due to _______________ .

2. When debugging a CICS application , we use CEBR command to ___________.

3. Suppose that an Application Program uses the HANDLE AID ENTER

(Main-logic) and HANDLE CONDITION ERROR ( Abort-rtn) commands. If the program
issued a RECEIVE MAP and a 'Map Fail' condition occurred, which
process will take control: 'Main-Logic' OR 'Abort-rtn' ?

4. EXEC CICS HANDLE ABEND is used to __________________.

5. EXEC CICS ABEND is used to __________________________.

6. EXEC CICS ENTER is used to __________________________.

7. EXEC CICS TRACE is used to ___________________________.

8. a) EXEC CICS ENQ is used to ___________________________.

b) EXEC CICS DEQ is used to ____________________________.

9. Records in an Intra partition TDQ can be recovered by specifying _______.

10. A "Quasi-reentrant" program is _________ and in CICS 'reentry'

occurs at the time of _________________.

11. a) PUSH and POP commands are used to suspend and reactivate ,
respectively
all ____________ CONDITION requests currently ineffect.
b) PUSH and POP are used while calling Sub-programs. (TRUE / FALSE)

12. SOC7 Error is due to _________________.

ANSWERS

1. No data was transferred from screen.

2. to view contents of TSQ or TDQ
3. Main-logic will receive control because HANDLE AID has
priority over HANDLE CONDITION
4. pass control to a program or a paragraph for ABEND processing.
5. Terminate a task intentionally , causing an ABEND.
6. To create a user entry to the TRACE TABLE
7. To Activate and Deactivate the CICS TRACE CONTROL facility.
8. a) gain exclusive control over a resource.
b) to free the exclusive control for the resource.
9. REUSE = NO in DFHPCT ( This way 'logically deleted records can be
recovered)
10. a) a program which does not modify itself so that it can reenter
to itself and continue processing.
b) a CICS command.
11. a) HANDLE
b) FALSE ( Only for Routines in Main programs)
12. DATA Exception.