PH66957: MIGRATION TO 5.6 FROM 5.4 CAUSING COMMAREA TO HAVE BLANKS FOR UNINITIALIZED VARIABLES.

Obtain the fix for this APAR.

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• Customer migrated from 5.4 to 5.6 and is facing an error caused
  by behavioral changes for unassigned values.
  
  In version 5.4 the DFHCOMMAREA holds low-values NULLS x'00' for
  uninitialized variables while in version 5.6 they are SPACES
  x'40' and this is causing an error that leads to abend 4038.
  

Local fix

• As a workaround using the feature toggle of 32kcommarea:
  com.ibm.cics.dpl.32kcommarea=false.
  

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED: All CICS Users.                              *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: Transaction abend 4038 when processing  *
  *                      an EXEC CICS LINK request with COMMAREA *
  *                      LENGTH at least 24K.                    *
  ****************************************************************
  An EXEC CICS LINK request to a remote program, over an MRO
  CONNECTION, specifies a COMMAREA LENGTH of at least 24K.
  The COMMAREA was initialized to SPACES (x'40' characters) and
  the DATALENGTH of application data is less than the COMMAREA
  length.
  
  Even though DATALENGTH is specified on the EXEC CICS LINK
  command the whole COMMAREA is copied to the DFHCOMMAREA
  container and shipped in the DFHTRANSACTION channel.
  
  The remote program which receives the COMMAREA and processes the
  application data unexpectedly finds trailing SPACES instead of
  NULLS which leads to an abend.
  
  KEYWORDS: com.ibm.cics.dpl.32kcommarea
  

Problem conclusion

• When DATALENGTH is specified on the EXEC CICS LINK command, CICS
  is changed to copy that length to the DFHCOMMAREA container with
  the rest being NULLS.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

  PH69107 UO06998

Modules/Macros

• DFHXFP   DFHXFQ
  

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  CICS TS Z/OS V5

• Fixed component ID

  5655Y0400

Applicable component levels

• R300 PSY UO06998

     UP26/03/04 P F603

Fix is available

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