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vijay · Beginner Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 131 Topics: 64

Hi ,
I'm new to mainframes.Can u expalin the difference between commarea,dfhcommarea and
linkage section.
for ex:
say pgm1 has this command:

EXEC CICS LINK
PROGRAM (pgm2)
COMMAREA (PARAMETER-AREA)
LENGTH (LENGTH-PRM)
END-EXEC

what should be there in pgm2 commarea and linkage ?

Thanks,
Vijay

vijay · Beginner Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 131 Topics: 64

I mean to ask when I use the LINk command as above -- are all the variables in the linkage section available for use in the called program ?

manojagrawal · Beginner Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 124 Topics: 29

Hi Vijay,

When you link to a new program, you are passing the commarea in the COMMAREA parameter.

Now in the called program, you would have to have a linkage section to recieve this commarea. Then you copy the linkage section to your own working storage and do what you need to. Now, you have to keep track of all sizes. They should match up, i mean the length of the commarea and the place where you are receiveing it. Otherwise you will loose data and may get a LENGERR abend.

Hope that helps!
Regards,
Manoj.

warp5 · Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 12:46 am Post subject:

When a new transaction starts there is NO commarea available at first.
It is very important to know that the commarea HAS to be built from working storage. The receiving program uses the linkage area. Any enlargement of the commarea (increase of length) MUST again be built from the working storage. Disregarding this will cause storage violations in CICS, which can cause unpredictable results and crashes.