You use the DEFINE FILE command to define a file as either
a CICS®-maintained data table
or a user-maintained data table.
Full details of FILE definitions are given in FILE resources.
Only the attributes that relate to data tables are described in this
topic.
- TABLE({NO|CICS|USER|CF})
- Specify TABLE(CICS) to define the file as a
CICS-maintained data table
Specify TABLE(USER) to
define the file as a user-maintained data table
If you do
not specify the TABLE parameter, or specify TABLE(NO), or TABLE(CF), the
file is not defined as a CICS shared data
table.
- MAXNUMRECS(NOLIMIT|number)
- Specifies the maximum number of records that can be contained
in the data table, in the range 1 through 99999999. The default is
that there is no limit on the maximum number of records.
- FILE(name)
- Specifies the name of the file.
For a CICS-maintained data
table, this name is used to refer to both the data table and the source
data set, which are treated as a single entity by CICS.
For a user-maintained data table,
this name is used to refer to only the data table.
- DSNAME(name)
- Specifies the name of the VSAM KSDS to be used as the source data
set. This must be a base data set, not a path, or an alternate index
data set. If there is a path or alternate index associated with the
source data set, any updates for a CICS-maintained data table, made
via the file, are reflected in both the source data set and its alternate
indexes. For a user-maintained data table, the updates are not reflected
in either the source data set or its alternate indexes. After loading
has completed, a user-maintained data table is entirely independent
of its source data set.
- LSRPOOLID(number|1)
- This attribute is obsolete, but is supported to provide compatibility
with earlier releases of CICS.
- LSRPOOLNUM(number|1|NONE)
- Specifies the number of the VSAM local shared resource (LSR) pool
that is to be used by the data table. You must specify an LSRPOOL
number, in the range 1 through 255. The default value is 1, unless
a value has been specified for the NSRGROUP attribute, in which case
the default value for LSRPOOLNUM is NONE.
- OPENTIME({FIRSTREF|STARTUP})
- Specifies when the file is to be opened, either on first reference
or immediately after startup, by the automatically initiated transaction
CSFU. OPENTIME(FIRSTREF) is assumed by default.
Remember that the data table is loaded when the file is opened,
so if you are using the user exit XDTRD, make sure that the user exit
is activated before the file is opened (see Activating user exits for data tables).
- RECORDFORMAT({V|F})
- Specifies the format of the records in the file—either RECORDFORMAT(V) for
variable-length records or RECORDFORMAT(F) for
fixed-length records.
RECORDFORMAT(V) is assumed
by default. A user-maintained data table must have variable-length
records.
- ADD(NO|YES), BROWSE(NO|YES), DELETE(NO|YES),
READ(YES|NO), and UPDATE(NO|YES)
- Specifies the file operations that can be requested for the data
table.
- RECOVERY({NONE|BACKOUTONLY|ALL})
- Specifies the type of recovery support that is required for the
data table. The default is RECOVERY(NONE).
For
a user-maintained data table, only dynamic transaction backout is
supported by CICS, so RECOVERY(BACKOUTONLY) and RECOVERY(ALL) have
the same meaning.
For a CICS-maintained data table, the RECOVERY
parameter applies to the source data set; it must be consistent with
any other file definition for the same data set.
The recovery
attributes of a user-maintained data table are independent of any
recovery attributes that its source data set might have.
When
you define a user-maintained data table, you specify its recovery
attributes on the file definition by specifying either RECOVERY(NONE) if
it is to be unrecoverable, or RECOVERY(BACKOUTONLY|ALL) if
it is to be recoverable after a transaction failure.
The source
data set for the user-maintained data table can be unrecoverable,
recoverable for backout only (after both transaction and system failures),
or forward recoverable, regardless of what you have specified for
the user-maintained data table.
The source data set can acquire
its recovery attributes in one of two ways:
- By having the recovery attributes for the data set defined in
the ICF catalog (this is possible in CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 5 Release 1 for
both RLS and non-RLS mode files).
- By using another file name to access the data set as an ordinary CICS file, with the recovery attributes
specified in the file definition (this is only possible in CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, Version 5 Release 1 for
non-RLS mode files).