The DFHCSDUP INITIALIZE command

Description

You must initialize your CSD file before you can use any of the other DFHCSDUP commands, or the RDO transactions. After you have initialized your CSD file, you do not need to execute this function again.

The standard entries for the CICS®-supplied resource definitions are created on the CSD file. The INITIALIZE command arranges these definitions into groups, and defines these groups in a group list named DFHLIST. This list contains only the CICS-supplied groups that are required by a CICS system.

CICS supports RDO for transient data. The DFHDCTG group contains sample definitions of all the CICS-supplied queues. You can add the names of other queues that you want to be installed at the same time to DFHDCTG. Place DFHDCTG at the beginning of DFHLIST so that the queues become available for use at the earliest possible point during CICS initialization.

If you use another group to install the CICS-supplied queues, make sure that this group is at the beginning of the first list to be installed using GRPLIST as part of an initial or cold start.

You can put other transient data resource definitions into different groups, from which they can be installed either during an initial or cold start, or at some point after initialization has completed.

INITIALIZE also creates a control record at the start of the CSD file. This record contains fields identifying the CICS release and the current level of service applied to the CSD. It also has fields containing the date and time of creation of the CSD file, and the date and time the file was last updated. Both these fields appear on the hard copy listing of the CSD file produced by the LIST command.

If you want to prepare a newly defined recoverable data set for use as a CSD file, you must INITIALIZE it using non-RLS mode, because a recoverable data set cannot be opened for output from batch in RLS mode, but the data set needs to be opened for output in order to initialize it.