Printing with a START command

The first technique for creating the print task is to issue a START command in the task that wants to print. The command names the printer as the terminal required by the STARTed task in the TERMID option and passes the data to be printed, or instructions on where to find it, in the FROM option.

About this task

START causes CICS® to create a task whose principal facility is the designated terminal when that terminal is available.

The program executed by the STARTed task, which you must supply, retrieves the data to be printed (using a RETRIEVE command), and then writes it to its terminal (the printer) with SEND, SEND MAP, or SEND TEXT. For example:

Figure 1. Task that wants to print (on printer PRT1)

(build output in OUTAREA, formatted as expected by the
STARTed task)
EXEC CICS START TRANSID(PRNT) FROM(OUTAREA) TERMID(PRT1)
LENGTH(OUTLNG) END-EXEC.

Figure 2. STARTed task (executing transaction PRNT)


EXEC CICS RETRIEVE INTO(INAREA) LENGTH(INLNG) END-EXEC.
(do any further data retrieval and any formatting required)
EXEC CICS SEND TEXT FROM(INAREA) LENGTH(INLNG) ERASE PRINT END-EXEC.
(repeat from the RETRIEVE statement until a NODATA condition
arises)

The task associated with the printer loops until it exhausts all the data sent to it, in case another task sends data to the same printer before the current printing is done. Doing this saves CICS the overhead of creating new tasks for outputs that arrive while earlier ones are still being printed; it does not change what finally gets printed, as CICS creates new tasks for the printer as long as there are unprocessed START requests.