Use External Vars in CICS

murtank · New User Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 2

Hi,

Need to use external var in CICS-environment(cobol prog). It is a dynamic call. Many CICS transactions will call module X at the same time from different programs. What will happen with the working storage fields & external vars. Will a CICS-thread have its own working storage for module X or will it be shared with other CICS-threads?
In short could someone pls ans the following ques....

1) If i use External variables in my Cobol+CICS prog will the value remain throughout a CICS transaction?
2) Will the value of the external var remain across diff CICS transactions?

Any help will be greatly appreciated...Thanks

mallikiran · New User Joined: 07 Sep 2005 Posts: 49

When you say call, is it the standard methods of CICS calls, i.e. XCTL, LINK or LOAD? Or are you talking about calling a batch program from a CICS program?

Again, when you say external variable, do you mean COMMAREA?

Like any other environment, CICS would have a different working storage for each instance of the program running.

murtank · New User Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 2

By external i meant a var defined as EXTERNAL in the PICTURE clause.

From what i have found for each instance of the transaction invoked we have its own copy of the EXTERNAL var. And its value is lost if an XCTL or LINK is used (within the same run unit or transaction) but is available through out if a normal CALL (to batch cobol) is made...

Please correct me if im wrong..

Thanks,