Asynchronous Natural Processing under CICS

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# Asynchronous Natural Processing under CICS

This document contains special considerations that apply when you are using asynchronous Natural under CICS.

The following topics are covered:

- Asynchronous Natural Processing

- Asynchronous Natural Sessions under CICS

- Testing and Debugging

## Asynchronous Natural Processing

Asynchronous Natural processing is generally discussed in the section Asynchronous Processing in the Operations documentation; however, some additional considerations apply when running under CICS. These are described in the following sections.

## Asynchronous Natural Sessions under CICS

Make sure that appropriate `SENDER` and `OUTDEST` destinations are specified for an asynchronous Natural session; otherwise, any output (for example, unexpected error messages) will lead to an abnormal termination.

Also, make sure that a suitable message switching transaction ID (`MSGTRAN`) is specified in the `NTCICSP` macro of the Natural parameter module and defined in CICS.

In addition to CICS terminal IDs and transient data destinations for `SENDER` and `OUTDEST`, the following keywords are supported by Natural CICS Interface:

`DUMMY` | Any output is ignored.
`CONSOLE` | Any output is routed to the operator console. When dealing with the console, the terminal type should be switched accordingly, using the profile parameter `TTYPE` or the terminal command `%T=` set to `ASYL` or other.

By default, the 3270 data stream protocol is used for output of an asynchronous Natural session under CICS.

It is also possible to send Natural output data without any 3270 terminal or printer control information to, for example, a CICS message destination such as CSSL. This can be accomplished by switching into line mode using a `SET CONTROL``'T='` statement or by starting with profile parameter `TTYPE=xxxx`, where xxxx is `BTCH` or `ASYL`. All Natural output is then sent line by line, with a leading ASA control character when the Natural profile parameter `EJ` is set to `ON`; with `EJ=OFF`, no control character is sent at all.

| Warning: When `SET CONTROL 'T=xxxx'` or `SET CONTROL '+'` is used, or when personal-computer support is enabled (profile parameter `PC` set to `ON`), the Natural system variable `*DEVICE` will be modified, which means that it can no longer be used to determine an asynchronous Natural session.

Note that some parameter settings for asynchronous Natural sessions can be forced by setting the `NTCICSP` macro parameter `RCVASYN` to `ON`.

## Testing and Debugging

Recent CICS versions offer the transaction CEDX which enables debugging of asynchronous tasks in CICS. In earlier CICS versions, such debugging was only possible with terminal tasks.

If you want to test asynchronous Natural sessions without CEDX, start the asynchronous Natural session from a terminal, and either specify `ASYN` as the very first five characters in the dynamic parameter string, or specify the profile parameter `TTYPE=ASYN` or `TTYPE=ASYL`. Natural CICS Interface then sets up an asynchronous Natural session. Note that even though Natural handles the session as asynchronous, CICS keeps on treating it as a terminal session.

### On this page

- Asynchronous Natural Processing
- Asynchronous Natural Sessions under CICS
- Testing and Debugging