Pseudo conversational or Conversational mode !

shailesh_do · New User Joined: 27 Jun 2006 Posts: 9

By looking at module how to identify if it is pseudo conversational or normal conversational ?

PeterHolland · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:06 pm

You look at the module in a load library, e.g. its member name??????
That will be very tough.

Maybe you supply some more info about the module, the environment it
runs on/in etc.

Bill O'Boyle · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:35 pm

When you say "looking at the module" you'd have to be referring to source NOT load. Is this a correct assumption?

I'd have to surmise that you're talking about CICS transactions/programs?

Unless the region uses Macro CICS programs, last supported in CICS/MVS 2.1.2 (for HLL) or CICS/ESA 3.1.1 (Assembler H only - No support for HLASM) for their applications, then these would qualify as Conversational. Otherwise, if the programs are Command-Level CICS, they should always be Pseudo-Conversational, unless of course, some numb-nuts coded it as Conversational and management allowed it to be put into Production.

But, aftermarket products such as COMET can be used to allow application-level Macro programs to execute successfully, in CICS/ESA 3.2.1 version/release and greater. Keep in mind that CICS HLL (COBOL) Macro programs could only be written in OS/VS COBOL and support was never included with VS/COBOL II (introduced some 25 years ago) and greater. With that, I'm unsure how COMET handles CICS/TS 3 environments, where OS/VS COBOL is no longer supported. Maybe a customer would have to use another aftermarket product, like MacKinney Systems VS/Cobol Interpreter. But, that's just a SWAG on my part.

Note that many of the IBM transactions (CEMT, CEDA, CEDB, CEDC, CEDF, etc) are Conversational and have been for several decades.

To tell you the truth (and IMHO), this type of question should not be emphasized anymore and its context is unrealistic. There are more important issues to discuss.

Bill

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:58 pm

Bill -- one clarification. APPC transactions are conversational as well. Once connected, you CONVERSE with the other CICS region until done and then the connection is released.

Bill O'Boyle · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:04 pm

Yes Robert, missed that one completely (early stages of CRS ya know).

Used to write alot of CICS/LU6.2 Mapped exchanges in ASM, years ago.

Was fun stuff at the time....

Bill

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:06 pm

We used COBOL for ours back when I was doing it. Of course, there was the time we found we needed to connect to two sites that were using the same CICS APPLID ... I don't miss those days!

Bill O'Boyle · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:15 pm

Was wondering if you ever fooled with CICS/LU6.2 Unmapped Conversations, using GDS (Generalized Data Stream) and is (was) supported in ASM only?

A different animal altogether.

Arlene Wipfler's 20 year old book "Distributed Processing in the CICS Environment" (McGraw/Hill) was a real help.

If anyone is still maintaining Distributed environments, this book is still viable.

ISBN ===> 0-07-071136-4

It can be found for good prices (used/new) on ===> isbn.nu

Bill

Robert Sample · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:21 pm

No, I managed to avoid GDS and unmapped conversations. Although we did have a neat application (a screen painter that generated 3270 data streams and stored them in VSAM files; the application software put the data stream to a terminal and voila instant custom screen without BMS or other tools) that ran at a low level. There was some Assembler involved but not a lot.