CICS provides a number of services that enable you to construct
business-critical applications.
Subtopics
Understanding file control
CICS data management services have traditionally
been known as CICS file control. CICS file control offers you access
to data sets that are managed by either the Virtual Storage Access
Method (VSAM) or the basic direct-access method (BDAM).
Terminal control
The CICS application programming interface contains
two sets of commands for communicating with terminals, Terminal control
commands and Basic Mapping Support (BMS).
Interval control
The CICS interval control services provide functions
that are related to time.
Task control
The CICS task control facility provides functions
that synchronize task activity, or that control the use of resources.
CICS storage protection and transaction isolation
Storage control is affected by storage protection and transaction
isolation. Storage protection protects CICS code
and control blocks from applications, and transaction isolation protects
tasks from each other.
Transient data control
The CICS transient data control facility provides a generalized
queuing facility. Data can be queued (stored) for subsequent internal
or external processing. Selected data, specified in the application
program, can be routed to or from predefined symbolic intrapartition or extrapartition transient
data queues.
Temporary storage control
The CICS temporary storage control facility provides
the application programmer with the ability to store data in temporary
storage queues, either in main storage, in auxiliary storage on a
direct-access storage device, or in a temporary storage data sharing
pool. Data stored in a temporary storage queue is known as temporary
data.
CICS documents and document templates
Application programs can create documents and place data into them using commands in the EXEC CICS DOCUMENT application programming interface. Document templates are portions of a document which can be created offline, or in another CICS program, and used by the application program to create the document.
Setting up document templates
Document templates are CICS resources, which you define using
DOCTEMPLATE resource definitions.
Named counter servers
CICS provides a facility for generating unique sequence numbers for use by application programs in a Parallel Sysplex® environment. This facility is controlled by a named counter server, which maintains each sequence of numbers as a named counter.
Printing and spool files
CICS does not provide special commands for printing, but there are options on BMS and terminal control commands that apply only to printers, and for some printers you use transient data or SPOOL commands.
Basic mapping support
Basic mapping support (BMS) is an application programming
interface between CICS programs and terminal devices.
BTS application programming
BTS provides an application programming interface (API) that you
can use to run business transactions in CICS.
FEPI application development
Application developers can use CICS API commands to develop FEPI applications.
This information describes how to develop FEPI applications, including
the interfaces that are available and how to handle conversations
and errors.
Last updated: Thursday, 27 June 2019