IMS Connect XML converters

When you enable IMS Connect XML conversion support, you must create the XML converters that are used by IMS Connect to convert the data structures from XML to the programming language used by the IMS application program and vice versa.

The XML converters are application programs. You can use the separately licensed tool IBM® Developer for System z® to automatically generate the XML converters from the COBOL copybook or the PL/I source code.

Recommendation:

For COBOL application programs, the XML converter is based on the COBOL copybook of the IMS COBOL application program that processes the message. For PL/I application programs, the XML converter is based on the source of the PL/I application program. Each IMS application that processes messages converted from XML must have its own unique XML converter.

The XML converters run in an IBM Language Environment® for z/OS® enclave in the IMS Connect region. The amount of space required depends on the size and number of XML converters required in your environment. The IMS Connect region size must be increased to accommodate this storage requirement.

You can specify the maximum number of XML converters that this instance of IMS Connect can load concurrently via the MAXCVRT configuration parameter specified in the configuration member HWSCFGxx of the IMS PROCLIB data set. When your applications exceed the maximum number of XML converters specified in MAXCVRT, IMS Connect unloads the Least Recently Used XML converters first.

XML converters are defined as BPE exit list members. After initially creating an XML converter, you can update and refresh it without restarting IMS Connect by using any of the following commands:
  • The WTOR command REFRESH CONVERTER
  • The z/OS Modify command UPDATE CONVERTER
  • The type-2 command UPDATE IMSCON TYPE(CONVERTER) NAME(converter_name) OPTION(REFRESH)