Processing CHANGEAGENT, CHANGEAGREL, CHANGETIME, CHANGEUSRID, and CREATETIME attributes

The first 8 bytes of every CPSM Definition and CICS® Definition resource table record contain an attribute called CHANGETIME, which reflects the date and time at which the record was last modified. CICS Definition records also include a CREATETIME attribute, which is the date and time at which the definition was created.

CICS Definition records also include a CREATETIME attribute, which is the date and time at which the definition was created.

Attribute fields CHANGEAGENT, CHANGEAGREL, and CHANGEUSRID in the resource table resource definition record, combined with the existing CHANGETIME and CREATETIME attributes, form the resource definition signature and are valid only for BAS resource definitions.

CHANGEAGENT displays how the resource was defined or last modified. CHANGEAGREL contains the level of CICS system that created or last modified the resource definition. CHANGEUSRID contains the user ID that created or last modified the resource definition.

You can use the Operations base table resource name and the BAS resource definition version to identify the resource definition used to install a resource. However, the BAS definition record might have changed since the resource was installed. Compare the CHANGETIME value in the Operations base table record with the CHANGETIME value in the BAS resource definition record to see if the time values correspond. You can only compare the first word of the STCK time values because the CHANGETIME value in the BAS record is in full local STCK format but the CHANGETIME value in the Operations base table record is in reduced granularity STCK format. This restriction also applies when comparing a BAS resource definition CREATETIME with the corresponding Operations base table DEFINETIME STCK values.

The CHANGEAGENT, CHANGEAGREL, CHANGETIME, CHANGEUSRID and CREATETIME attributes are maintained internally by CICSPlex® SM; do not attempt to modify these attribute values. When you update a resource table record, the CHANGEAGENT, CHANGEAGREL, CHANGETIME, CHANGEUSRID and CREATETIME values you pass to the TBUILD command must be the same values you received from TPARSE.

By default, the TPARSE command translates the CHANGETIME and CREATETIME values into displayable, character values. However, the character forms of these values cannot be passed back to TBUILD. So, if you plan to update a definition and then rebuild the resource table record, you should use the ASIS option on the TPARSE and TBUILD commands. When you use ASIS, the CHANGETIME and CREATETIME values appear as 16-byte hexadecimal values.