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Capture specification

The capture specification defines the place in a CICS application where a particular event can be captured; for example, an EXEC CICS READ FILE command of a file where the record key has a particular value.

An application analyst takes a defined business event and converts it to one or more capture specifications using the CICS® event binding editor.

The places in a CICS application that can be enabled as capture points consist of a number of the EXEC CICS API commands, and program initiation. The EXEC CICS commands that can be specified as a capture point are shown in Table 1.

The capture specification further refines the criteria for event emission by using filter data, such as the transaction ID or program name. The capture specification defines the location of the data that is used to filter the event, and the data to be captured.

For example, the field name of an order value must be greater than 10,000. The location can be a field in a COMMAREA, a container, or a 3270 data stream. The capture specification defines the location of the data to be emitted with the event. The data item can also be specified in a filter predicate, so the event is emitted only if the value exceeds 10,000.

A capture specification consists of the capture point, such as an EXEC CICS API command, relating to the event, and some filter predicates that give more precision about the exact location or locations where the event occurs.

Each capture point has a primary predicate. A primary predicate is a predicate for which it is strongly recommended that you select the Equals Operator and provide a value to avoid a performance impact as you add more capture specifications at a capture point. The primary predicate keywords for each command are shown in Table 1. If a command does not have a primary predicate keyword specified in Table 1, then the program name from the Application Context is used as the primary predicate.

The location of the event in the application logic depends on how it is specified. If a CICS application contains two instances of the same EXEC CICS API command, and the filter specification does not distinguish between the two commands, an event is emitted when both commands are issued.

Table 1. EXEC CICS commands that can be specified as a capture point
Command Primary predicate
CONVERSE Current Program from the Application Context
DELETE FILE FILE
DELETEQ TD QUEUE
DELETEQ TS QNAME
INVOKE SERVICE SERVICE
LINK PROGRAM PROGRAM
PUT CONTAINER CONTAINER
READ FILE
READNEXT FILE
READPREV FILE
READQ TD QUEUE
READQ TS QNAME
RECEIVE Current Program from the Application Context
RECEIVE MAP MAP
RETRIEVE Current Program from the Application Context
RETURN TRANSID
REWRITE FILE
SEND Current Program from the Application Context
SEND MAP MAP
SEND TEXT Current Program from the Application Context
SIGNAL EVENT EVENT
START TRANSID
WEB READ Current Program from the Application Context
WEB READNEXT Current Program from the Application Context
WRITE FILE FILE
WRITEQ TD QUEUE
WRITEQ TS QNAME
XCTL PROGRAM
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