Identify macro-level programs utility program (DFHMSCAN)

To convert your CICS® applications to command-level, you first have to identify your macro-level programs. To help you do this, CICS provides the DFHMSCAN program to scan a load module library and identify programs that use CICS macros.

About this task

DFHMSCAN scans load modules, looking for instruction sequences that appear to be macro expansions. It locates and, optionally, lists each code sequence that seems to result from a macro instruction. The suspect code sequences could be:
  • CICS-supplied DFH macros listed in the Application development reference.
  • CICS-supplied macros present in MACLIB.
  • User-modified CICS macros.
  • User-written macros.
  • None of these.

There is no guarantee that a suspect instruction is a CICS-supplied macro, rather than a user or vendor macro or, indeed, none of these. DFHMSCAN’s strategy is to list anything that might be a macro, and to cause that part of the program to be examined (see How DFHMSCAN works).

DFHMSCAN identifies CICS DFH macros explicitly where it can. It also reports the use of obsolete EXEC CICS ADDRESS CSA commands.

The primary purpose of DFHMSCAN is to give you the information you need to develop a conversion plan, and to quantify the resources you need to achieve it. Based on its reports, you might, for example, decide to convert some of your macro-level programs to command-level, to discard some, and to contact the suppliers of others.

DFHMSCAN does not itself use any CICS macros, commands, or DSECTs. It runs in batch mode and can run concurrently with online CICS systems. It does not alter the contents of the libraries that it scans.

The recommended way to use DFHMSCAN is to:
  1. Produce a summary report to identify suspect modules
  2. Produce detailed reports to review modules that the summary report flagged as suspect.