IBM i languages, utilities, and licensed programs

The IBM® i languages, utilities, and licensed programs discussed in this topic can access remote CICS® files.

  • Programs written in the following languages on the IBM i can access remote CICS files:
    ILE C programming language
    See ILE C considerations.
    CL
    See IBM i CL considerations.
    ILE COBOL programming language
    See ILE COBOL considerations.
    See PL/I considerations.
    ILE RPG programming language
    See ILE RPG considerations.
  • Programs written in BASIC might cause results that cannot be predicted when accessing remote CICS files.
  • IBM i Query can access the remote entry sequence data set (ESDS), relative record data set (RRDS), and key sequence data set (KSDS). However, IBM i Query cannot access virtual storage access method (VSAM) files through DDM.
  • The IBM i Access Family licensed program might cause unpredictable results when accessing remote CICS files on behalf of IBM i languages, utilities, and licensed programs.
Note: Some of the high-level languages provide access to the server database I/O feedback area. When accessing a remote VSAM RRDS, this area will contain the relative record number. However, when accessing other types of VSAM data sets, the relative record number is not known and a value of -1 is returned as the relative record number.

Additional considerations might apply when accessing CICS files that are to be read or written by a System/370 host due to the way a System/370 host stores data. For example, the System/370 host representation of a floating-point number is different from the IBM i representation of a floating-point number.