CONVERSE (LUTYPE2/LUTYPE3)

Description

CONVERSE communicates on a 3270-display logical or 3270-printer logical unit.

Options

ASIS

indicates that output is to be sent in transparent mode (with no recognition of control characters and accepting any of the 256 possible combinations of eight bits as valid transmittable data).

Note: If you are using a katakana terminal, you might see some messages containing mixed English and katakana characters. That is because katakana terminals cannot display mixed-case output. Uppercase characters in the data stream appear as uppercase English characters, but lowercase characters appear as katakana characters. If this happens, ask your system programmer to specify MSGCASE=UPPER in the system initialization parameters so that messages contain uppercase characters only. This note applies to any command that is used to receive katakana characters, not just to CONVERSE commands.

CTLCHAR(data-value)

specifies a 1-byte write control character (WCC) that controls the CONVERSE command. A COBOL user must specify a data area containing this character.

If the option is omitted, all modified data tags are reset to zero, and the keyboard is restored.

DEFRESP

indicates that a definite response is required when the output operation has been completed.

ERASE

specifies that the screen printer buffer or partition is to be erased and the cursor returned to the upper left corner of the screen. (This option applies only to the 3270, or 8775, and to the 3604 Keyboard Display.)

The first output operation in any transaction, or in a series of pseudoconversational transactions, should always specify ERASE. For transactions attached to 3270 screens or printers, unless explicitly overridden by the DEFAULT or ALTERNATE option, this also ensures that the correct screen size is selected, as defined for the transaction by the SCRNSIZE option in the RDO PROFILE definition.

FROM(data-area)

specifies the data to be written to the terminal or logical unit, or sent to the partner transaction. This option may, when relevant, be omitted if ATTACHID is specified.

FROMFLENGTH(data-value)

is a fullword alternative to FROMLENGTH.

FROMLENGTH(data-value)

specifies the length, as a halfword binary value, of the data. For a description of a safe upper limit, see LENGTH options in CICS commands.

MAXFLENGTH(data-value)

is a fullword alternative to MAXLENGTH.

MAXLENGTH(data-value)

specifies the maximum amount (halfword binary value) of data that CICS® is to recover in response to a CONVERSE (default) command. If INTO is specified, MAXLENGTH overrides the use of TOLENGTH as an input to CICS. If SET is specified, MAXLENGTH provides a way for the program to limit the amount of data it receives at one time.

If the value specified is less than zero, zero is assumed.

If the length of data exceeds the value specified and the NOTRUNCATE option is not present, the data is truncated to that value and the LENGERR condition occurs. The data area specified in the TOLENGTH option is set to the original length of data.

If the length of data exceeds the value specified and the NOTRUNCATE option is present, CICS retains the remaining data and uses it to satisfy subsequent RECEIVE commands. The data area specified in the TOLENGTH option is set to the length of data returned.

If no argument is coded for MAXLENGTH, CICS defaults to TOLENGTH.

NOTRUNCATE

specifies that, when the data available exceeds the length requested, the remaining data is not to be discarded but is to be retained for retrieval by subsequent RECEIVE commands.

INTO(data-area)

specifies the receiving field for the data read from the terminal or logical unit, or the application target data area into which data is to be received from the application program connected to the other end of the current conversation.

SET(ptr-ref)

specifies the pointer reference to be set to the address of the data read from the terminal. pointer reference, unless changed by other commands or statements, is valid until the next CONVERSE (default) command or the end of task.

If DATALOCATION(ANY) is associated with the application program, the address of the data can be above or below the 16MB line.

If DATALOCATION(BELOW) is associated with the application program, and the data resides above the 16MB line, the data is copied below the 16MB line, and the address of this copy is returned.

If TASKDATAKEY(USER) is specified for the running task, and storage protection is active, the data returned is in a user-key. If TASKDATAKEY(CICS) is specified and storage protection is active, the data returned is in a CICS-key.

STRFIELD

specifies that the data area specified in the FROM option contains structured fields. If this option is specified, the contents of all structured fields must be handled by the application program. The CONVERSE command must be used if the data area contains a read partition structured field. (Structured fields are described in the CICS 3270 Data Stream Device Guide.)

CTLCHAR and ERASE are mutually exclusive with STRFIELD, and their use with STRFIELD generates an error message.

TOFLENGTH(data-area)

is a fullword alternative to TOLENGTH.

TOLENGTH(data-area)

specifies the length (halfword binary value) of the data to be received. If you specify INTO, but omit MAXLENGTH, “data-area” specifies the maximum length that the program accepts. If the value is less than zero, zero is assumed.

If the length of the data exceeds the value specified, but NOTRUNCATE is omitted, the data is truncated to that value, and the LENGERR condition occurs. When the data is received, the data area is set to the length of the data.

For a description of a safe upper limit, see LENGTH options in CICS commands.

Conditions

06 EOC

occurs when a request/response unit (RU) is received with the end-of-chain indicator set. Field EIBEOC also contains this indicator.

Default action: ignore the condition.

22 LENGERR

occurs in any of the following situations:

• Data received is discarded by CICS because its length exceeds the maximum that the program accepts (see TOLENGTH and MAXLENGTH options), and the NOTRUNCATE option is not specified.
• An out-of-range value is supplied in one of the options, FROMLENGTH, FROMFLENGTH, MAXLENGTH, MAXFLENGTH, TOLENGTH, or TOFLENGTH.

Default action: terminate the task abnormally.

81 TERMERR

occurs for a terminal or session-related error. Any action on that conversation other than a FREE causes an ATCV abend.

A CANCEL TASK request by a user node error program (NEP) may cause this condition if the task has an outstanding terminal control request active when the node abnormal condition program handles the session error.

Default action: terminate the task abnormally with abend code ATNI.