Top 27 CICS interview Questions to Revise Concept Quickly

Here are the 27 top interview questions helpful for interviews and your project. The set of questions collected from all interviews

27 CICS Interview Questions

1. What are CICS Control programs and their respective CICS control tables?

PCT-KCP PPT-PCP, FCT-FCPDCT-TDPJCT-JCP TCT-TCP TST-TSP

2. Can we do Sort by the SORT verb in the CICS Program?

No

3. Can we open files explicitly in the CICS Program?

CICS automatically opens and closes the files.

4. Can a file control paragraph be coded in the CICS Program?

NO

5. How a CICS Transaction be initiated?

By entering the CICS transaction id.

6. How many ways can we initiate a CICS Transaction? What are they?

5 ways. 1.By entering a task id in a terminal and pressing the enter key 2.trans id associated with the pseudo conversation 3.By using the start command. Means start command with trans id. 4.pf keys and pa keys registered in PCT. 5.By ATI..by using the trigger level parameter in the DCT table.

7. What is Pseudo-conversation? How it is achieved in CICS Programs?

When a CICS program attempts a conversation with the terminal. It doesn’t wait for the terminal user’s response. It links to another program to execute that task whenever the user responds the control comes back and executes the task. From the system point of view, it’s a multitasking operation and from the user’s point of view, it’s normal conversation. 

So it’s called pseudo conversation. By giving the task id in the return command we can achieve the pseudo conversation.

8. What is Multitasking & Multi-threading?

Executing more than one task concurrently whether it’s using the same program or different programs.

Executing more than one task concurrently by using the same program

9. What is Quasi-reentrancy? Can you give examples of Quasi-reentrant programs?

The program can’t modify itself that’s it can reenter itself and continue the processing after interruption by CICS.

10. What is the difference between the Ignore-Condition and the No handle condition?

Ignore-condition is applicable throughout the program. No handle applies to that particular command.

11. How many conditions can be coded in one Handle condition? Like when other conditions in the Evaluate verb in COBOL, What is the equivalent in handle condition?

12 conditions.

12. What is the difference between the LINK, XCTL & CALL statements?

Link: Transfers control to the lower logical level and expecting back the control.

XCTL: control transfers to the same logical level and control doesn’t come back.

Call: It’s a COBOL statement. You can use between CICS commands. The function is the same as LINK.

13. What are the VSAM files used in the CICS Programs?

ESDS, KSDS, RRDS

14. What are the commands available for browsing VSAM files? What is the sequence of coding these commands in the CICS programs?

STARTBR, READNEXT, READPREV, RESETBR and ENDBR

15. What is the difference between the Attention Identifier & Handle aid commands? How will they be coded in CICS Program?

Using the attention identifiers we can assign the aid‘s to DFHAID.In handle aid just we can assign the control directly to the pf keys. if DFHAID=PF3 Perform s010-para. Exec CICS handle aid Pf3(s010) Pf4(s020) End-exec.

16. What is the difference between the Physical Map and the Symbolic Map?

A physical map is in the form of an application program coded using BMS macros assembled separately and link edited in the load library. Just it’s a physical map.Type =MAP

The symbolic map is the member of a copy library, coded using BMS macros assembled separately and link edited in the copy library. It sends data fields to the map.Type=dsect

17. What are the macros used in coding the Maps?

Dfhmsd,mfhmdi,dfhmfd.

18. What is MDT? In how many ways it can be Set or Reset?

It’s a Modified data tag. it’s a one-bit attribute byte of every screen field.

By using fset and frset we can reset it. fset make the mdt on (1)…the field does not modified. frset makes mdt off(0)..the field has been modified…

19. What are the Skipper & Stopper fields?

Once the field has been filled the cursor automatically skips to MDT another field. The stopper field stops the cursor once the field has been filled.

20. When you get the Mapfail condition? What is the abend code of it?

When receiving the map press the enter key without entering the data.AEI9.

21. What are the Cursor Positioning techniques in CICS (Cursor in CICS)?

• Static position
• dynamic symbolic position
• dynamic relative position

22. What are all the differences between the TDQ & TSQ?

TSQ is a temporary storage queue. other programs use this one as a scratchpad memory. Records can be identified thru queue id. It doesn’t store in any particular table.

TDQ provides the communication between the programs…..intra tdq’s and extra tdq’s.

It can be identified by the destination id sorted in DCT table. You can use delete a rec in tdq. once you read you can’t re-read it, but you can delete the entire tdq.

23. What is the command used to hold exclusive control of the resources?

ENQ

24. What is the Master Terminal transaction?

CEMT

25. What are the CICS supplied standard transactions and what for they are used?

CECI: to execute the CICS commands

CEMT: Master terminal transaction to change or display the status of the CICS environment interactively.

CEBR: to browse the CICS files.

26. What is the difference between the MRO & ISC?

MRO: Multi-region operation

ISC: Inter-system communication.

27. When the MDT value is ‘0’, what does it mean?

It means that the user not entered any value

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