Running the CSECT Scanner

The CICS® IA CSECT Scanner scans load modules for information that can be used to identify the version of each CSECT.

The output is stored in DB2® tables and can be used, in conjunction with the DB2 dependency tables, to identify different versions of programs.

For each load module the CSECT Scanner records the following information:
  • Load module length
  • Entry point offset
  • AMODE
  • RMODE
  • Linkage editor or binder identifier and version
  • Linkage edit or bind timestamp
For each CSECT the CSECT Scanner records the following information:
  • Translator (compiler) identifier and version
  • Translation (compile) date
  • User data specified on the Linkage Editor IDENTIFY control statement
  • HMASPZAP data, specified during HMASPZAP processing

The Scanner generates a printed report. Optionally, the load module information is added to the CIU_PROGRAM_INFO table and the CSECT information is added to the CIU_CSECT_INFO table. To extract CSECT Scanner data into the CSV files for use by a UDB, see the sample jobs described in Preparing CSV files.

To help you identify translators and linkage editors, a third DB2 table, CIU_TRANSLATORS, is preloaded with information about the IBM® assemblers, compilers, linkage editors, and binders that are likely to be found. You can use this table to convert translator identifiers into more easily understood descriptions.

The key items of information in the DB2 dependency tables that can be used to identify load module versions are program name and program length. This information is not ideal because the program length is not always unique for each version of a program; however, it is all that is available to the Collector at run time. Also, the length of programs placed in a Partitioned Data Set Extended (PDSE) can be rounded up to multiples of 4 KB. To prevent this rounding, specify the FETCHOPT(PACK,PRIME) option when link-editing the programs.

Run the CSECT Scanner whenever load libraries that contain programs for which interdependency data is being collected are changed. This run adds information about any new or changed programs and CSECTS to the DB2 tables. The structure of the tables produced by the CSECT Scanner is shown in The structure of the CSECT Scanner objects.

You can use the CSECT Scanner database objects with the Dependency database objects to compare the dependencies of different versions of a program. You can also use the two database objects to identify dependency data that applies only to an old version of a program, so that the data can be deleted.