DFHLS2WS CICS web service assistant

guptaritu1 · New User Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Delhi

We have a C++ application deployed with CICS. We were trying to expose the same as Web Service.

We tried using the DFHLS2WS CICS web service assistant to expose the following C Structure to the web

Struct {
int X;
char[9];
int Y;
}dfhrequest;

The utility generates the WSDL and WSBIND file.

WSDL is then used to generate the soap message which is received by CWI

Our C++ application program is invoked by CICS default transaction.

The C++ application program is designed to pick up data as follows:

4 bytes as integer variable. ( 0 to 3)
Next 9 bytes as charcater array ( 4 to 12 )
Next 4 bytes as character ( 13 to 16 )

But the data is not received that ways. We observed from the attached commarea that data is coming like following

4 bytes as integer variable. ( 0 to 3)
Next 12 bytes as character array ( 4 to 16 )
Next 4 bytes as character ( 16 to 20 )

We did further tests with following structures

Struct {
int X;
intZ;
int Y;
}dfhrequest;

Struct {
Char X[9];
Char Y[10];
Char Z[11];
}dfhrequest;

Struct {

int a;
int b;
int c;
Char X[9];
Char Y[10];
Char Z[11];
}dfhrequest;

Perfect results in all of these cases.

It seems when there is a mix of data types int, character, int there is a problem of offset which is causing issue.

Can somebody suggest how we can set the UNALIGN because it seems we cannot have keyword unaligned in C.

Binop B · Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:38 pm

Hi Ritu,

I am mainframe (COBOL) programmer but i will still let u know what i think might be happening.

In mainframe there are some cases called boundary allignment which requires fields to be alligned in multiples of four ( bytes ). so here... in ur case when u have a mix of integer and char fields it might be advisable to put in fillers (between the struct wherever required) so that each field is alligned as multiples of four.

guptaritu1 · New User Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Delhi

when we send it as a single charcater array.. say int, char int are taken as char[16], then when it reaches our application it will use the bytes in commarea and take first 4 bytes as int and next 9 bytes as character and would expect the \0 as the terminator for the character array.

But we get Soap parsing error.

Binop B · Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:18 pm

hi...

no idea what soap parsing error is....

... anyways... i did not und the "terminator" concept. are u telling that the destination C++ programs is always expecting a null termination ( single byte ) after every character field ??

guptaritu1 · New User Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 5 Location: Delhi

when we send it as a single charcater array.. say int, char int are taken as char[16], then when it reaches our application it will use the bytes in commarea and take first 4 bytes as int and next 9 bytes as character and would expect the \0 as the terminator for the character array.

But we get Soap parsing error.

Robert Sample · Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:01 pm

From the z/OS XL C/C++ Language Reference manual, with emphasis added by me: