17 April 2014

I am HOBSET because the binder put me in APCL in CICS

(SWIDT?)

So, after a break of a few years, I am plunging back into the world of CICS.

I needed to do some testing with writing out of messages via CEEMOUT, a Language Environment call that is the issuer of messages, and used by languages–er, "members"–for diagnostics and basic output. For COBOL, DISPLAY goes here; for PL/I, PUT without FILE; for C/C++, stdout/err. In batch, this is controlled by MSGFILE. Under CICS, CEEMOUT output goes to a temporary data queue, by default CESE; this by default is defined as an external queue, and it is defined to DDNAME CEEOUT.

I started writing a driver program to put a new subroutine through its paces. However, when I tried to run it, I got an APCL abend.  This is documented in typical IBM-speak something like "LE recognized that this was an LE program, but it couldn't initialize it." Googling didn't help; the only references are to the aforementioned messages & codes manuals, and one very old reference to a PL/I for MVS and VM manual.

Since I was using some old JCL of mine from prior places, I went to some that is used in another product build. That worked, so it was time to find the differences. I started with the binding process, and it did not take long. The culprit was HOBSET=YES. This parm sets the AMODE bits on in V-cons, so it can be used in BSM and BASSM instructions if you are flipping AMODEs.  I removed it, and voilĂ , the problem went away. 

I am debating whether or not to open a PMR. The restriction is not documented in either CICS or LE documentation. I'm OK with it being a restriction, but the lack of documentation bothers me.