CICS data tables

You can define a data table by using the CEDA DEFINE FILE command.

About this task

When a table is opened, CICS® builds it by extracting data from the tables corresponding source VSAM data set and loading it into an MVS™ data space owned by the CICS data tables server region, and constructing an index in CICS virtual storage above the 16 MB line. The commands used to access these tables are the file control commands of the CICS application programming interface (API).

For information about defining CICS data tables, see Shared data tables. For programming information about the file control commands of the application programming interface, see the Command summary. CICS supports two types of data table:
  • CICS-maintained data tables that CICS keeps in synchronization with their source data sets.
  • User-maintained data tables that are detached from their source data sets after being loaded.

For either type, a global user exit can be used to select which records from the source data set should be included in the data table.

For programming interface information about global user exits, see Global user exit programs. For further information about CICS data tables, see Shared data tables overview.