QMF callable and command interfaces

If you choose not to use QMF procedures, you need to decide whether your program communicates with QMF through the callable interface or the command interface.

Callable interface

The QMF callable interface is a Systems Application Architecture (SAA) interface that you use to create an application that is invoked outside of QMF, starts a QMF session, and sends commands to QMF for execution.

The callable interface is available for all environments supported in QMF. It is the SAA Common Programming Interface for query in the VM, OS/390, and VSE environments, and is available for various languages as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Callable interface support
CICS under OS/390 CICS under VSE CMS TSO APPC SRPI Native OS/390 batch
assembler 1 × × × × × × ×
C × × × × × × ×
COBOL × × × × × × ×
FORTRAN × × × × ×
PL/I × × × × × × ×
REXX × × × × ×

If you want to write SAA applications, you must use the callable interface in one of the SAA languages that QMF supports.

For more information about the callable interface, see The Callable Interface.

Command interface

The QMF command interface allows you to create applications that submit commands to QMF from an ISPF dialog. QMF communicates with the ISPF dialog through the ISPF variable pool using this command interface.

The command interface is only available when ISPF is available. The command interface is not available in CICS.

For more information about the QMF command interface, see Using the Command Interface for Applications.

Contrasting the callable and command interfaces

The differences between the callable interface and the command interface are:

Callable interface:

Command interface:

1.
Assembler is not an SAA language.

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