Natural CICS Interface and IBM Language Environment (LE)

The Natural CICS Interface supports LE programs. This document contains information on LE enablement of Natural under CICS.

It covers the following topics:


CICS Transaction Server for z/OS - LE-compliant

If supported by the CICS Transaction Server for z/OS installed at your site, the Natural CICS Interface is LE-compliant by itself, that is, a Natural CICS Interface task can directly CALL (standard linkage conventions, not CICS LINK) LE programs written in languages such as C, COBOL or PL/I, when

  • SET CONTROL 'P=LS' has been specified,

  • SET CONTROL 'P=S' has been specified,

  • NCIPARM parameter SLCALL=YES has been specified and the program to be called is not a CICS program.

To make the Natural CICS Interface LE-compliant, set the CICS translator option LEASM when installing the Natural CICS Interface starter module NCISTART and the Natural CICS Interface RPC server front-end module NCISFED (see the corresponding step in Installing the Natural CICS Interface on z/OS in the Natural Installation for z/OS documentation or Installing the Natural CICS Interface on z/VSE in the Natural Installation for z/VSE documentation); this CICS translator option must not be set for any other Natural CICS Interface component or user exit.

CICS Transaction Server for z/VSE - non-LE-compliant

Even if the Natural CICS Interface is not LE-compliant with the CICS Transaction Server installed at your site (due to missing support for LE-enabled assemblers), it still provides LE functionality for LE-compliant 3GL front-end program calls; see the sample program XNCIFRCN (COBOL), XNCIFRPN (PL/I) or XNCIFRDN (C ), and the section Natural CICS Sample Programs.

Alternatively, LE compliance of the Natural CICS Interface nucleus can be achieved by linking one of the three delivered LE-compliant front-end stubs NCILEFC (COBOL), NCILEFP (PL/1) or NCILEFD (C) to the Natural CICS Interface nucleus; in this case the 3GL front-end stub has to be INCLUDEd before the NCISTART module.

In order to notify the Natural CICS Interface about the underlying LE enclave, the LE-compliant 3GL front-end program first must call the NCI LE stub program NCILESTB by passing the CICS TWA address (see the samples mentioned above); this program checks if it is running LE-enabled, that is, if an LE enclave does exist, and sets up appropriate information for the Natural CICS Interface in the CICS TWA. For the Natural CICS Interface to run LE compilant, a front-end caller therefore must not pass front-end parameters in the CICS TWA.

In addition, for LE compliance of the Natural CICS Interface nucleus, the CICS-supplied EXEC interface stub DFHELII has to be used for installation (see Installing Natural CICS Interface on z/VSE in the Natural Installation documentation), rather than the DFHEAI stub module.