Commands used with AO applications (ICMD)

The syntax and synonyms for commands are the same whether the command is entered using an ICMD call or from a terminal. All messages returned in response to an ICMD call or a command entered from the terminal are the same. To receive responses to these commands, use the RCMD call.

Format of commands

The general format of your I/O work area on an ICMD call is:

LLZZ/verb KEYWORD1 P1 KEYWORD2 P2, P3. Comments

LL: Two-byte field containing the length of the command text, including LLZZ.
ZZ: Two-byte field reserved for IMS.
/ or CRC: Indicates an IMS command follows. CRC (command recognition character) rather than a slash (/) is used in the DBCTL environment.
verb: The command you issued.
KEYWORDx: Keywords that apply to the command you issued.
Px: Parameters for the keywords you specified.
. (period): End of the command.

The length of a command is limited by the size of the I/O area; the size is specified in the IOASIZE parameter in the PSBGEN macro during PCB generation. LL is the length of the command text. The size of the I/O area is the length of the actual command text, plus 4 bytes for LLZZ. The minimum size of the I/O work area is 132 bytes.

The fifth byte must be a slash (/) (or CRC for DBCTL), and the verb must follow immediately. The /BROADCAST and /LOOPTEST commands must have a period between the command segment and text segment, and must be preceded by an LLZZ field that includes the size of the text. Comments can be added by placing a period (.) after the last parameter.

When issuing the /SSR command, do not code an end-of-message indicator (period). If a period is used, it is considered part of the text.