Copy and Clean CICS Journal

CICS journals are special-purpose sequential datasets that are accessed at real-time CICS execution by user tasks. Information written to CICS journals can be used subsequently for problem determination, database update log, or as a record of transactions passing through the system.

Each journal is identified by a number ranging from 2 through 99, inclusive, and is defined in the Journal Control Table (JCT). Journal number 1 is reserved for the system log journal.

When a journal dataset resides on disk and is defined in the Journal Control Table (JCT) with JOUROPT=PAUSE, message DFH4583 is issued if the dataset becomes full. CICS then waits for a reply from the operator indicating that the dataset can be used again (meaning, either it has been copied or a copy is not desired).

A correct reply must be received before CICS attempts to access the dataset for output again. Otherwise, all tasks using the specified journal are delayed until the reply is received.

This solution provides two options for handling full journal datasets:

• For a test CICS environment, the rule immediately replies to the message so that CICS reopens the journal dataset for output.
• For a production CICS environment, the provided rules automatically trigger a copy and clean job in Control- M to dump the relevant dataset and reply to the message upon successful completion of the job.