The CICS JSON assistant
The CICS® JSON assistant is a set of batch utilities that generate mappings between high-level language structures and JSON schemas for performing transformations between JSON and application data. The assistant supports rapid deployment of applications that perform JSON processing, for use in service providers and service requesters, with minimum amount of programming effort.
When you use the CICS JSON assistant for CICS, you do not have to write your own code for parsing inbound messages and for constructing outbound messages; CICS maps data between the JSON message and the application program's data structure.
The JSON assistant can create a JSON schema from a simple language structure, or a language structure from an existing XML schema, and supports COBOL, C/C++, and PL/I. It also generates metadata that CICS uses at run time to automatically convert XML data to binary application data or vice versa; the metadata is defined in an XML binding and stored on z/OS® UNIX. The schema for the XML binding is in /usr/lpp/cicsts/cicsts52/schemas/xmltransform/ directory on z/OS UNIX.
- DFHLS2JS
- DFHLS2JS maps high-level language structures to JSON schemas. It also generates a web service binding file from a language structure.
- DFHJS2LS
- DFHJS2LS maps JSON schemas to high-level language structures. This utility generates a web service binding file from a JSON schema and a language structure that you can use in your application programs.
The JCL procedures to run both programs are in the hlq .XDFHINST library, where hlq is the high-level qualifier of your CICS installation.
You must code high-level language structures that are processed by DFHLS2JS according to the rules of the language, as implemented in the language compilers that CICS supports.
- DFHLS2JS: High-level language to JSON schema conversion for linkable interface
- DFHJS2LS: JSON schema to high-level language conversion for linkable interface
- DFHLS2JS: High-level language to JSON schema conversion for request-response services
- DFHJS2LS: JSON schema to high-level language conversion for request-response services
- DFHJS2LS: JSON schema to high-level language conversion for RESTful services
Data mappings
The mapping from high-level language structures to JSON schemas and the mapping from JSON schemas to high-level language structures are not symmetrical.