Single Containers

Substation ES supports single container input and output from a program. The input and output containers have the same name as the program to be called, while the default channel name used is SXCOSRVGCHANNEL.

To use a single container, perform the following steps:

  1. In the Container Process field in the CICS panel (SXTP05I), specify S for single container type.
  2. When configuring Input Message Type, consider these points:
    • EMS Bytes messages, Text messages and Stream messages are passed as user data to input container. Bytes and Stream types are handled as binary data (OPA). Text type is handled as string.
    • EMS Map and Rendezvous messages are processed according to conversion rule and are passed as user data to input container.
  3. When configuring the Output Message Type, consider these points:
    • EMS Bytes messages, text messages and Stream messages are created by using all the data in the single output container.
    • EMS Map messages and Rendezvous messages are created by using the output conversion rule and the single output container as the user buffer to generate fields. The names of the fields are derived from the conversion rule.
  4. During CICS execution, consider these points:
    • Only one input container is created and only one output container is allowed. The name of both containers (input and output) is based on whether Single CTN Name is specified. If a user program creates more than one container, only the expected named container is used. All others are ignored.
    • The only Reply Methods that are supported are 0 (none) and 1 (status). For a Container Invocation of T (transaction), there is no reply message with data.