System, method and apparatus to allow communication between CICS and non-CICS software applications
OwnerRussell W. Teubnerinventor
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Abstract
A system, method and apparatus to facilitate the invocation of existing CICS BMS transactions and deliver the executed transaction output to a requesting application as a standardized XML document. Building upon a facility which intercepts the flow of control between a user transaction and BMS, the instant invention replaces the use of terminal-oriented data streams with XML documents. In doing so, the instant invention eliminates the use of prior art techniques, such as “screen scraping”.
Claims16
A system to facilitate the invocation of a CICS transaction within a server central processing unit via a client central processing unit communicated request, converting said invoked transaction's output to an XML document and the communicating of said XML document to said client central processing unit comprising:
- at least one server central processing unit executing CICS under the dispatching control of said server's operating system;
- at least one client central processing unit;
- and
- software executing within said server central processing unit which adapts said server to respond to a request communicated from said client central processing unit by invoking the execution of a CICS transaction within said server, converting said executed transaction's output to an XML document and communicating said XML document to said client central processing unit.
A computer based method for facilitating the invocation of a CICS transaction within a server central processing unit via a client central processing unit communicated request, converting said invoked transaction's output to an XML document and communicating said XML document to said client central processing unit comprising:
- receiving an input request from a client;
- converting said received request to a standardized format;
- identifying said request as an initial or subsequent request by determining the presence or non-presence of a token communicated with the request;
- creating data structures required to invoke a CICS transaction if initial request, or present data if responding to a prior request;
- initiating a CICS transaction if initial request, or providing data to previously initiated transaction if responding to a prior request;
- awaiting and identifying response to said transaction initiation or said data provision from a group of possible responses including the transaction issued an output command, the transaction issued an input command, the transaction ended, or the transaction ended abnormally;
- continuing process execution based upon results of said identification;
- generating an XML document based upon said continuing process execution;
- and
- waiting for the next communicated input request.
The method of claims 5 and 11 wherein said processing further comprises generating an ADS.
The method of claims 5 and 11 wherein said processing further comprises merging physical map information into an ADS.
The method of claims 5, 9 and 11 wherein said processing further comprises merging the composite ADS into current ADS.
An apparatus for facilitating the invocation of a CICS transaction within a server central processing unit via a client communicated central processing unit request, converting said invoked transaction's output to an XML document and transmitting said XML document to said client central processing unit comprising:
- a general purpose computer;
- a memory that stores a program which XML-enables CICS transactions;
- and
- a central processing unit that, when executing said program, adapts said general purpose computer to facilitate the invocation of a CICS transaction within said central processing unit based upon a a client communicated central processing unit request, converts said invoked transaction's output to an XML document and transmits said XML document to a client central processing unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.