Understanding abend codes

Under Language Environment, abnormal terminations generate abend codes. There are two types of abend codes: 1) user (Language Environment and user-specified) abends and 2) system abends. User abends follow the format of Udddd, where dddd is a decimal user abend code. System abends follow the format of Shhh, where hhh is a hexadecimal abend code. Language Environment abend codes are usually in the range of 4000 to 4095. However, some subsystem abend codes can also fall in this range. User-specified abends use the range of 0 to 3999. The following display shows examples of abend codes.

User (Language
Environment) abend code:U4041
User-specified abend code:U0005
System abend code:S80A

The Language Environment callable service CEE3ABD terminates your application with an abend. You can set the clean-up parameter value to determine how the abend is processed and how Language Environment handles the raised condition. For more information about CEE3ABD, see CEE3ABD—Terminate enclave with an abend in z/OS Language Environment Programming Reference.

You can specify the ABTERMENC runtime option to determine what action is taken when an unhandled condition of severity 2 or greater occurs. For more information about ABTERMENC, see Establishing enclave termination behavior for unhandled conditions. Also see ABTERMENC in z/OS Language Environment Programming Reference.

User abends

If you receive a Language Environment abend code, see Language Environment abend codes in z/OS Language Environment Runtime Messages for a list of abend codes, error descriptions, and programmer responses.

System abends

If you receive a system abend code, look up the code and the corresponding information in the publications for the system you are using.

When a system abend occurs, the operating system can generate a system dump. System dumps are written to ddname SYSMDUMP, SYSABEND, or SYSUDUMP. If the DYNDUMP runtime option is used in combination with the TERMTHDACT runtime option, the system dump can be written without the ddname specified. System dumps show the memory state at the time of the condition. See Generating a system dump for more information about system dumps.