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Supported CICS Features

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Program control
  3. Terminal & BMS screens
  4. Files (VSAM-style)
  5. Temporary Storage (TS) & Transient Data (TD) queues
  6. Channels & containers
  7. Storage, serialization & unit of work
  8. System services & inquiry
  9. Web services
  10. Summary
  11. Related articles

Audience: developers and technical decision-makers checking which CICS commands a Heirloom-migrated PL/I application supports.

Overview

This is a quick reference to the EXEC CICS commands the runtime supports, grouped by area with a one-line explanation each. Your migrated PL/I keeps these statements unchanged.

For embedded database support, see the companion article Supported SQL Features.

Note: This is a summary of the commonly used surface, not an exhaustive option-by-option specification. If you need confirmation that a specific command or option your application relies on is covered, contact Heirloom support with the detail.

Program control

Command Purpose
LINK, XCTL Call / transfer control to another program
RETURN (incl. TRANSID, COMMAREA) End a program; pseudo-conversational return
START, CANCEL, RETRIEVE Start a transaction (deferred/triggered) and read its data; cancel
LOAD, RELEASE Load / release a program or table
ENABLE PROGRAM, DISABLE PROGRAM Enable / disable a program
DELAY, SUSPEND, POST, WAIT EVENT Timing and task synchronization
ABEND Abnormally end a task

Terminal & BMS screens

Command Purpose
SEND MAP, RECEIVE MAP Display / read a BMS screen
SEND TEXT, SEND PAGE, SEND CONTROL Text output, paging, terminal control
SEND, RECEIVE Raw terminal I/O

(See How to Build a CICS Application with BMS Screens for the screen model.)

Files (VSAM-style)

Command Purpose
READ, WRITE, REWRITE, DELETE Direct record access
STARTBR, READNEXT, READPREV, RESETBR, ENDBR Browse (sequential read) a file
UNLOCK Release a record hold

Temporary Storage (TS) & Transient Data (TD) queues

Command Purpose
WRITEQ TS, READQ TS, DELETEQ TS Temporary storage queue access
WRITEQ TD, READQ TD, DELETEQ TD Transient data queue access

Channels & containers

Command Purpose
PUT CONTAINER, GET CONTAINER Pass data between programs via containers
STARTBROWSE CONTAINER, GETNEXT CONTAINER, ENDBROWSE CONTAINER Browse the containers in a channel

Storage, serialization & unit of work

Command Purpose
GETMAIN, FREEMAIN Allocate / free task or shared storage
ENQ, DEQ Serialize access to a resource
SYNCPOINT, SYNCPOINT ROLLBACK Commit / roll back the unit of work

System services & inquiry

Command Purpose
ASSIGN, ADDRESS Obtain task/system values and addresses
INQUIRE / SET (file, program, task, terminal, transaction, TD queue, TS name, system) Query / change resource attributes
ASKTIME, ASKTIME ABSTIME, FORMATTIME Date/time services
HANDLE CONDITION, IGNORE CONDITION Condition handling control
WRITE OPERATOR Send a message to the operator/console
SPOOLOPEN, SPOOLWRITE, SPOOLCLOSE Spool (report) output
EXTRACT EXIT Access a Global Work Area

Web services

Command Purpose
INVOKE SERVICE Call an external SOAP web service (see the SOAP integration guide)
XML transform Convert between XML and application data structures

Every CICS command supports RESP / RESP2 so your programs can test the response and reason codes exactly as before.

Summary

The supported CICS surface spans program control, BMS screens, files, TS/TD queues, channels/containers, storage, serialization, syncpoint, system inquiry/set, time services, condition handling, spool, and SOAP web services — all with RESP/RESP2. This list is a summary; contact support to confirm a specific command or option.

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