Tracing for selected tasks

You can select which tasks are to have standard tracing, which are to have special tracing, and which are to have tracing suppressed. If you specify standard tracing for a task, trace entries are made at all the trace points in the standard set. If you specify special task tracing, you get trace entries at all the trace points in the special set. If you suppress tracing for a task, you do not get any tracing done (except exception tracing) when that task is running.

For transactions that run at terminals, a task is considered to be an instance of a transaction run at a specific terminal. By defining the type of tracing you want by transaction and terminal, you automatically define what task tracing is to be done.

For non-terminal transactions, a task is just an instance of the transaction. The type of tracing you define for the transaction alone defines the type of task tracing that is to be done.

The type of task tracing you get for the various combinations of transaction tracing and terminal tracing is summarized in the truth table shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The combination of task trace options
OPTION on TRANSACTION	OPTION on TERMINAL	Task tracing
tracing suppressed	standard tracing	SUPPRESSED
tracing suppressed	special tracing	SUPPRESSED
standard tracing	standard tracing	STANDARD
standard tracing	special tracing	SPECIAL
special tracing	standard tracing	SPECIAL
special tracing	special tracing	SPECIAL

You can set up the task tracing you want using the CETR transaction, with the screen shown in Figure 1. You need to type in the transaction ID or the terminal ID or the netname for the terminal, together with the appropriate tracing.

The status can be any one of STANDARD, SPECIAL, or SUPPRESSED for the transaction, and either STANDARD or SPECIAL for the terminal.

This screen can also be used to set up certain other terminal tracing options. You can select ZCP tracing for a named terminal (trace point ID AP 00E6), and you can also select CICS® z/OS® Communications Server exit tracing for the terminal. For more details about CICS Communications Server exit tracing, see z/OS Communications Server exit tracing.

Figure 1. CETR screen for specifying standard and special task tracing

 CETR                   Transaction and Terminal Trace
 Type in your choices.
 Item                             Choice    Possible choices
 Transaction ID             ===>            Any valid 4 character ID
 Transaction Status         ===>            STandard, SPecial, SUppressed
 Terminal ID                ===>            Any valid Terminal ID
 Netname                    ===>            Any valid Netname
 Terminal Status            ===>            STandard, SPecial
 Terminal VTAM Exit Trace   ===>            ON, OFf
 Terminal ZCP Trace         ===>            ON, OFf
 VTAM Exit override         ===>  NONE      All, System, None
 When finished, press ENTER.
 PF1=Help      3=Quit     6=Cancel Exits      9=Error List

Note: VTAM® is now the z/OS Communications Server.

The CETR transaction can, for example, help you to get standard tracing for a transaction when it is run at one terminal, and special tracing when it is run at a second terminal.

Note:

You can turn standard tracing off for all tasks by setting the main system trace flag off. You can do this with the CETR transaction, using the screen shown in CETR - trace control, or you can code SYSTR=OFF at system initialization. However, any special task tracing will continue, it is not affected by the setting of the system main trace flag.
If you run with standard tracing turned off and you specify levels of tracing for the required components under the "Special" heading in the Components Trace Options screen shown in Figure 1, you can use CETR to trace a single transaction. To do this, specify the transaction ID and a transaction status of SPECIAL, on the screen shown in Figure 1.