CICS- Channels And DFHCOMMAREA

Containers are named blocks of data designed for passing information between programs. A channel can contain multiple containers. So, CHANNELS are called modern days DFHCOMMAREA

  • EXEC CICS PUT CONTAINER(container-name) CHANNEL(channel-name) commands. It can then pass the channel (and its containers) to a second program using the CHANNEL(channel-name) option of the EXEC CICS LINK, XCTL, START, or RETURN commands.
  • The second program can read containers passed to it using the EXEC CICS GET CONTAINER(container-name) command. This command reads the named container belonging to the channel that the program was invoked with.
  • If the second program is invoked by a LINK command, it can also return containers to the calling program. It can do this by creating new containers, or by reusing existing containers.
  • Channels and containers are visible only to the program that creates them and the programs they are passed to. When these programs terminate, CICS automatically destroys the containers and their storage.
  • Channel containers are not recoverable. If you need to use recoverable containers, use CICS business transaction services (BTS) containers.

    • Notes: In general, Containers/Channels are not recoverable.

    Author: Srini

    Experienced software developer. Skills in Development, Coding, Testing and Debugging. Good Data analytic skills (Data Warehousing and BI). Also skills in Mainframe.