Default CICS exception handling
For COBOL, PL/I, and assembler language applications (but not AMODE(64) assembler language applications), unless you specify otherwise, CICS® uses its built-in exception handling whenever an exception condition occurs. For AMODE(64) assembler language applications and applications written in C or C++, CICS takes no action when an exception condition occurs. The application must handle the exception condition.
See Handling exception conditions by inline code for information about handling exception conditions.
With CICS default exception handling, when an exception condition occurs, the most frequent action is to cause an abend. For details about the specific behaviors for each condition and for each command, refer to Application development reference and Introduction to System programming commands.
- Turn off the CICS default exception handling on a specific EXEC CICS command call by specifying the NOHANDLE option.
- Turn off the CICS default exception handling by specifying the RESP option on the command. This option switches off the default CICS exception handling in the same way as the NOHANDLE command. It also updates the variable named by the argument of the RESP option with the value of the condition returned by the command. For details, see Handling exception conditions by inline code.
If you turn off the default CICS exception handling, you must ensure that your program copes with anything that might happen in the command call.
It is possible to use combinations of the HANDLE ABEND, HANDLE CONDITION, and IGNORE CONDITION commands to modify the default CICS exception handling, but this is no longer recommended. For details, see Modifying default CICS exception handling.