The following is an exchange between our resident CICS expert Robert Crawford and a SearchDataCenter.com reader. One of Crawford’s tips on how to find executed CICS statements sparked the following dialogue.

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Robert, your usual nice work - enjoy what you do here. Thanks for taking the time. Maybe a little bit off the subject just addressed, but a few years ago I thought it would be nice to know the order of execution of a series of CICS programs. We have a developer who loves subroutines and his “first-call program,” the one associated with the PCT, will call maybe 50 or more subroutines. Things can get ugly reading an AUXTRACE, so I decided to write some code.It basically starts out with:DFHAFCD TYPE=LOCATE,CB=KCB,REG=Rx.

I then run through the CICS address space memory looking for >DFHLDAPE to locate the Loader Domain “Active Program Element” chain. In a TS22 environment, one will find the time a program was loaded at x’3C’ and the time last used at x’78′. STCKCONV is used to convert to discernible time. It’s also useful for determining the last time a program was used. Output is written to TDQ = CSCS. We use IOF here, so I can easily “snap” MSGUSR and pitch what I do not need. Sort the output as desired, etc. etc.

Regards,

Mike Murrell
H-E-B
San Antonio, Texas

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Thanks, Mike. Let me return the compliment by admiring your ingenuity and guts in tiptoeing through the control blocks when the information you need isn’t readily available via known interfaces. Best of luck to you. Oh, and “Cleanup on aisle 9.”Robert Crawford

You simply must check out the Yelavich Road Web site that SearchDataCenter.com editor Matt Stansberry found. It is the personal site of former IBMer and computer guru Bob Yelavich (which rhymes with “yellow brick”) in which he chronicles his career working on SAGE, the System 360, IMS, GIS and much more. But the real gem of Yelavich’s site is his retelling of the evolution of CICS and other CICS-related information.