Asynchronous API

CICS® TS 5.4 introduces a set of CICS commands that can be used to develop applications that start one or more child tasks. These child tasks execute asynchronously to the parent task and the new commands provide the ability for the parent task to fetch responses from the child tasks.

The following API commands now support this programming model:

• EXEC CICS RUN TRANSID

  Initiates a local child transaction that runs asynchronously with the parent transaction.

• EXEC CICS FETCH CHILD

  Used by a parent task to inquire on the status of a specific child task.

• EXEC CICS FETCH ANY

  Used by a parent task to inquire on the status of any completed child task which has not yet been fetched.

• EXEC CICS FREE CHILD

  Used by a parent task which no longer requires the response of a child task, freeing resources associated with that child when it completes.

All of the new API commands are threadsafe. For more information about using the new API commands, see Developing for asynchronous requests.

For an in-depth look at the Asynchronous API, refer to IBM CICS Asynchronous API: Concurrent Processing Made Simple (SG24-8411).