CA Gen New & Updated Knowledge Base Articles for December 2020

[Lynn Williams]

Here is the December 2020 list of New & Updated CA Gen Knowledge Base Articles (December 1-31, 2020, US EST)
The full list of KB articles can be found from the CA Gen Product Information page here:
https://support.broadcom.com/mainframe-software/product-page.html?productName=CA Gen.
At the bottom of section "Knowledge Base Articles" click on the link for "See All Articles". See All Articles
NOTE: The default UI layout on the "See All Articles" page has improved due to the move to the SearchUnify search engine. The list below only includes Title, URL and Summary and does not show the Metadata (date etc)

Change in COBOL PIC clause for repeating groups

An action block created many years ago with an Export repeating group in it is defined as having 10000 records.  In previous versions of CA Gen, the generated COBOL programs had the array subscript variable defined as PIC 9(4) making the actual max array size to be no more than 9999 which was fine.   With CA Gen 8.6, this has changed and the generated subscript variable is now defined as PIC 9(8) for repeating groups with more than 9999 occurrences.  That's fine for all new code, but for newly generated action blocks that call older action blocks, this causes a SOC7 runtime error coming back from the called action block because of the difference in PIC clauses:   The COBOL source code for data fields involved in the failure:                ....

Based on the situation, the only safe recommendation is to regenerate the older action block. Since the cardinality of the group view for the older action block is greater than 9999 (10,000), it can only be matched to calling action blocks with the same view size. The newer action blocks will only generate a PIC(9). To generate a PIC(4) would require a smaller cardinality and cause a mismatch and a consistency check error. The change was deliberately made to fully support Repeating Group views greater than 9999 in cardinality.

TICLPRNT DD Statement missing

When trying to generate and install in foreground, receiving the message that DD statement TICLPRNT missing.  Just upgraded to COBOL 6.2 & z/OS 2.4.  Having the same issue in 8.5.  It was working before the 2 upgrades.

Increase TSO region size.

What value is set for the CA Gen globdata structure field PSMGR-RUNTIME-TYPE in a Windows/C environment.

A new feature on z/OS and COBOL populates the CA Gen PSMGR-RUNTIME-TYPE field when running on z/OS.  What value is set for the equivalent globdata structure field psmgr-runtime-type in a Windows/C environment?

Gen Engineering advised that the corresponding Windows/C globdata psmgr_runtime_type field is only set in the Gen Windows GUI C runtime and the value is "GUI". Other Gen Windows/C applications do not have any value set in their runtime. L1 Support also verified the same results using an External Action Block (EAB) using a work set attribute psmgr_runtime_type defined as Text with length 4 to access the "globdata->psmgr_runtime_type" value i.e.  - Only a Windows GUI C Client (fat client or cooperative client) has any value set and it is "GUI"  - For Windows C Cooperative server and Online C (block mode) applications, there is no value set.

Configuring the CA Gen 8.6 CSE to use a remote Microsoft SQL Server database

How to configure the Gen 8.6 CSE to use a remote SQL Server database i.e. the database is on a separate remote server to where the CSE software will be installed,configured and run.

Historically it was never recommended to use a CSE with a remote database due to possible performance problems over a networked database connection. However with advances in network speeds and bandwidths that concern should largely no longer apply. For a CSE server using SQL Server it is relatively easy to configure it to use a remote database because the CSE and CSE Configuration program (cse_config.exe) use an ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) for the database connection. Some points to note: 1. The cse_config.exe requires SQL Server Tools programs osql.exe and bcp.exe which can be obtained by installing SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 17.9.1 from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/release-notes-ssms?view=sql-server-ver....

ECI handling in pipes

CA Gen clients are using ECI to connect the web clients through IBM CICS Transaction Gateway (CTG) to CICS on mainframe.  With an increased number of concurrent users coming from web client, CTG is running out of pipes.  Does the Gen Runtimes for ECI  close the pipe after being used and are there are time parameters that are used to manage pipes?

Gen does the same thing in ECI that we do for all the other transport layers in that we pool valid connections and reuse them.  So Gen is not shutting down a connection/pipe after every flow.  TCPIP is the only transport where a transient connection is possible.  Also, there isn't a timeout property in the ECI coopflow.  There are not any properties or user exits that can change this behavior.

Build fails for CA Gen .NET Proxy with nested group views (errors CS0029, CS0022, CS1503)

Create the following server       *   +->   S1                                12/15/2020  08:12       *   !       EXPORTS:       *   !         Group View (2) g1       *   !           Group View (2) g2       *   !             Work View g ief_supplied (Transient, Export       *   !                         only)       *   !               count       *   !       *   !     PROCEDURE STATEMENTS       *   !      1*   !  +=>FOR SUBSCRIPT OF g1 FROM 1 TO LAST OF g1 BY 1      2*   !  !  +=>FOR SUBSCRIPT OF g2 FROM 1 TO LAST OF g2 BY 1      3*   !  !  !         4*   !  !  !  SET g ief_supplied count TO SUBSCRIPT OF g1 +      4*   !  !  !              SUBSCRIPT OF g2       5*   !  !  !         2*   !  !  +--      1*   !  +--       *   +---   Generating....

The fundamental problem here is that the Gen Server Manager that the proxy is being generated for is not allowed to have nested repeating group views. Support created a simple server PStep with nested repeating group views and the generation of its Server Manager with Consistency Check (CC) enabled at generation time failed with this ERROR message: ERROR : ICCBR13E A Procedure Step with either window or cooperative packaging must not contain nested repeating group views in its import or export view set. The .NET proxy generation/build then failed with the same messages as reported i.e. CS0029, CS0022 etc Granted that perhaps it would be expected for a similar CC ERROR message to be shown for the Proxy Generation, and that is maybe something....

Error B37-04 on trans file. How can the space of the ief.tran file be increased? 

Getting error B37-04 when downloading a big model in the encyclopedia.  Other models like "gen sample model" works fine. How can the space of the ief.tran file be increased?

The uid.IEF.TRAN file does not have to be allocated by Gen with default DCB info.  A tran file can be created with the desired space allocations (ex: cylinders - primary & secondary).  For example, here are 4  tran files as uid.IEF.TRAN     uid.IEF.TRANJKL  uid.IEF.TRANLKJ  uid.IEF.TRANO    uid.IEF.TRANS    Organization  . . . : PS     Record format . . . : VB     Record length . . . : 4092   Block size  . . . . : 4096   each having different space allocations or used to just keep from overwriting.  Then go to the download panel and enter the tran file name without the uid because Gen will prefix it with the TSO user id. Model name . . . . . .   GEN SAMPLE HELP MODEL 8 6______ Software version . . .   9.2.A6                          Transac....

 

CA Gen 8.6 EJB Web Service returns "Illegal Conversion" ERRORCODE=-4474 on Column which has Fieldproc defined in "DB2 z/OS" TD Properties

CA Gen application which has been running successfully as z/OS/CICS/DB2 block-mode is now being modernised to EJB Web Services under IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) connecting to DB2 z/OS database via DB2 JDBC driver. In the "DB2 z/OS" TD Properties, some tables have 1 or 2 columns defined with a Fieldproc (Field Procedure) named "REVNUM" which is a DB2 field procedure written in Assembler. Those columns are defined as character fields but store numeric data. Since the system is for Arabic users, the "REVNUM" Fieldproc is added to reverse the numbers in the string before being returned to the application for display on the screens of the current block-mode applications. However, when  generate, build, assemble and deploy the same cod....

This problem does not appear to be related to Gen generated Java code nor the Gen Java runtimes. 1. For block-mode COBOL generated applications where TD DB2 z/OS has "DBMS Access Method=Embedded SQL", there is nothing in the generated embedded SQL code to handle the Fieldproc "REVNUM" and it should all be handled in the DB2 DB which runs that field procedure and then returns the result to the application. Similarly for Java generation where TD DB2 z/OS has "DBMS Access Method=ODBC/ADO.NET/JDBC", the same would be true and the DB2 DB should return the correct result to the application via the DB2 JDBC driver. 2. From the error message jcc 4.19.77 is the version of DB2 for z/OS JDBC 4.0 Driver for DB2 for z/OS v11: https://www.ibm.com/support....

Error: HHC.EXE not found in the PATH.

We are testing the generation of code on Toolset 8.6 using Visual Studio 2017 (VS2017). In the Build Tool, we are getting an error that the hhc.exe file is not found. *** Error: HHC.EXE not found in the PATH. ***

The Microsoft Help Compiler was not installed with Visual Studio 2017 (VS2017).  The Help Compiler can be downloaded from the following Microsoft web link.  Once installed, the hhc.exe can be found in this folder, "C:\Program Files (x86)\HTML Help Workshop". Microsoft HTML Help Downloads

java.lang.ClassCastException

The Gen Toolset was upgraded from 8.5 to 8.6.  After changing code in a module IXXX I get the following error message when I flow from IYYY to IXXX.  I am not sure if the settings are correct.  In the error message, the current statement that is given is the end of IYYY java.lang.ClassCastException: class invwce.IXXXISS_IA cannot be cast to class inventry.IXXXISS_IA (invwce.IXXXISS_IA and inventry.IXXXISS_IA are in unnamed module of loader 'deployment.inventry.ear.inventry.war' @42abf3bd)

There is a difference in java package names being used.  In the error message, one version of IXXXISS_IA has a package name of invwce and the other version of IXXXISS_IA has a package name of inventry.  The java package name needs to changed to be the same and regenerate all the necessary code.

CA Gen Java Batch (EJB) Processing targeting Web Application Server

When converting Batch applications currently on z/OS as EJB Webservices.  Tried to convert them as Batch targeting EJB, Get error: "Language Parameter is not C, or COBOL".  Next, created Online No-Display (Batch Pstep) and packaged into Online Packaging and tried the generation targeting EJB but continue to get the error.   What are the Gen Procedures when generating/installing and targeting J2EE applications for Batch applications?

There is no real "batch" mode in the EJB world, specifically there is no analogy to JES which takes a queued job and begins executing it.  Gen only generates stateless session beans which need a client of some sort to invoke them.  An option is to write a "client driver" which invokes server Procedure Step (implemented as EJB) using the Gen proxy. The "client driver" would execute under control of some scheduling software. You could write a small "client driver" which invokes the server Procedure Step implemented as an EJB using the proxy.  If the client driver program is written in Java and uses the Java Proxy, then this program could run on the same application server as the EJBs.  Otherwise, write the program in C and use either the C or....

Failure of CA Gen Host Encyclopedia install job CEJOB10 with the message TIEC086E

Failure of CEJOB10 "Load required functions model to a new encyclopedia" The error message displayed is:  TIEC086E NO LONGER SUPPORT 8.0.A3 MODELS OR EARLIER.CANNOT UPLOAD.

CEJOB10 loads the Schema Functions Model. 1. The TIEC086E error is normally due to dataset prefix or suffix naming problems: a. Check if an incorrect value is set for the suffix names for "Data (EGEN/TRAN)" (Default: CEHBDATV) and "X-Late Tables" (Default: CEHBDATB) on the "Installation Variables Management"/"Set library names" screen: CA Gen 8.6 > Installing > Install CA Gen on z/OS > How to Configure Without CA CSM > Configuring Host Encyclopedia and Host Construction > Tasks to Define Installation b. Check suffix names and also validate dataset prefix/HLQ are all correct in PARMLIB members TIUHE, TIUHE2 e.g. TIUHE contains "TIUXLAT=HLQ.XXX.CEHBDATB" 2. After correcting any "Installation Variables Management"/"Set library names" problems ....

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Lynn Williams
Senior Principal Support Engineer
Broadcom
Australia
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