Time out values

When sending a message, you can specify the following keywords to assign timeout values to various phases of the processing:

SENDTIME
RESPTIME
HOLDTIME

SENDTIME indicates how long the work unit that invokes IXCSEND can be suspended to allow XCF to finish accessing the user storage that contains the message. Whenever IXCSEND returns to the caller, the user is free to reuse or dispose of the storage areas containing the message. To achieve this condition, XCF will either copy the user message into its own buffer or suspend the calling work unit XCF is done accessing the storage containing the user message. The SENDTIME timeout value applies when XCF elects to suspend the sender. If the SENDTIME timeout expires, XCF stops sending the message, in which case some of the targets will not receive the message.

RESPTIME indicates how long the sender is willing to wait for the message to complete:

If responses or acknowledgments are expected, the message completes when all of the expected responses and acknowledgments have arrived. In this case, the RESPTIME timeout value needs to allow enough time for the message to be sent to the target systems, time for the message to be processed, and time for the response to be sent and delivered to the local system. Responses and acknowledgments that arrive after the RESPTIME timeout expires are discarded by XCF. An attempt to send a response after the RESPTIME timeout expires might be rejected.
If responses and acknowledgments are not expected, the message completes when XCF has initiated the send of the message to each of the targets. In this case, the RESPTIME timeout value needs to allow time for XCF to send the message.
When the RESPTIME timeout value expires, XCF stops trying to send any messages that had not yet been initiated. Thus, some of the targets might not receive the message. The fact that XCF initiated the send of the message does not imply that the message has been delivered to the target.

The RESPTIME timeout value limits the amount of time that the invoker of IXCRECV can be blocked (suspended) waiting for the message to complete. If the RESPTIME timeout value expires, XCF resumes the blocked receiver and presents the results as of that moment. The metadata that describes the results will indicate whether messages were sent and if applicable, whether responses and acknowledgments were received.

HOLDTIME indicates how long XCF is to hold the results of a message after it completes. The HOLDTIME timeout value needs to allow however much time is needed for the user to invoke IXCRECV to retrieve the results. For example, if the user sends the message, performs other work, and then invokes IXCRECV to get the results, the HOLDTIME value needs to include time for the user to complete the other work. HOLDTIME should allow time to overcome system issues that might prevent the receiving unit of work from being dispatched.

If the HOLDTIME timeout expires, the message and its results, including any responses that might have been sent, are discarded by XCF. At that point, an IXCRECV request is rejected with a reason code indicating that the message no longer exists.

For details, see Using the IXCRECV macro.