The Master Terminal

We’ve just shipped a new APAR, PM02187, which contains samples for setting up some simple Atom feeds. So if you’ve thought about trying out some of the Web 2.0 features in CICS 4.1 but not had a go yet, then this might be for you. The samples are based around creating an Atom feed from records on a temporary storage queue (there’s a program to populate a sample TS queue in the APAR) and from a VSAM file (the FILEA sample).  The samples are documented in the Scenarios section of the CICS 4.1 information center. Each scenario has step by step instructions and a demo.

We would be very interested to hear if you have some feedback on the APAR or on the scenarios and demos provided in the information center.

I recently had a query from a colleague about updating his locally installed information center. He had updated it to include more recent versions of documentation and deleted the old JAR files and directories. However, the information center was corrupted when it restarted. So why does this happen and how do you fix it?

When you start an information center, Eclipse caches the navigation and when you search it creates indexes and stores these for future use. This helps with performance, particularly in a large information center like CICS. When you add new content, these caches are updated automatically for you to add new navigation entries and search indexes. However, if you delete content, the caches are not updated which can lead to unexpected results or the “corruption” experienced by my colleague.

To fix the problem:

1) Shut down your information center using the help_end.bat file
2) Delete the ibm_help\eclispe\workspace directory
3) Delete the directories in the ibm_help\eclipse\configuration directory but not the config.ini file.
4) Restart the information center using the help_start.bat fle

When Eclipse restarts, it creates a new cache for the navigation and will recreate the search indexes on your first search.

We have just published two new downloads on the IBM Publications Center for the CICS TS 4.1 and 3.2 information centers. These downloads run the infocenter on z/OS for the relevant release and contain the latest CICS TS, CICS TG, and tooling information. Both use the latest Eclipse code, which fixes the problems with viewing PDFs.

If you’re interested, the number for the CICS TS 3.2 infocenter on z/OS is SK4T-2656-00. The number for the CICS TS 4.1 infocenter on z/OS is SK4T-2654-00. The download is a zip file which contains a readme and a JAR file. The installation is much simpler – the JAR file contains the configured infocenter.  You still need to edit the start script to point to your Java installation and provide a port number.  Other than that though, you don’t need to do any other configuration (no copying plug-ins etc). The prereq is Java 6.

Hopefully, you will have seen the announcement about the new version of CICS Transaction Gateway. The CTG team are hosting a teleconference about its new features on December 3rd, which includes a live Q&A session at the end.

New features for CICS TG 7.2 include:

• New remote connectivity for C applications, and .NET deployment
• Enhanced High Availability
• Improved remote statistics enabling integration for CICS Explorer

If you’re interested, you can register at the following Web site:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/telecon/3dec/index.html