IBM Mainframe Forum

I was just handed a Telon program. Told to make some modifications. They have no documentation here.
I have my changes in. Also added new field to the map. I am struggling with this SPA. I am running thru DEBUG.
My background is CICS. I am struggling but getting this tested. However....can someone please give me a brief explanation of what they call the SPA and how it is used?

Is not TELON a code generator rather than a language in itself? What is the source language and the data base system being used? (PL/I and IMS DB/DC would be my guess from what you say, but that's little enough that I could easily be wrong.)

It is COBOL, IMS.

The context suggests that "SPA" stands for Scratch Pad Area -- a chunk of memory where data may be stored between transactions; think of it as containing all the persistent data that would cause the program to be non-reeentrant if it were in working storage.

I'm afraid that, as the name suggests, the SPA is unformatted storage to be used however the programmer desires. If undocumented, it's necessary to know the copybook(s) for the SPA and the code using it.

If Anuj Dhawan sees this, he may have something more meaningful to say.

Hello and welcome to the forum,

If your organization is licensed to use the prpoduct, the material may be downloaded free from CA Support. You have to register, but this is rather painless. They will be able to answer with all the detail you might want.

How does the code you are working with differ from a cics/cobol program that works?

Thank you. That does make sense.

dick scherrer wrote:Hello and welcome to the forum,

If your organization is licensed to use the prpoduct, the material may be downloaded free from CA Support. You have to register, but this is rather painless. They will be able to answer with all the detail you might want.

How does the code you are working with differ from a cics/cobol program that works?

Per the few people here I can get any information out of.....Telon is truly 'conversational' whereas CICS is pseudo-conversational (i.e. CICS task waits out there).
So from the reply I received, the SPA must be like the dfhcommarea in CICS

Hello,

So from the reply I received, the SPA must be like the dfhcommarea in CICS

I've never worked on Telon, but that sounds good<g>

I would still recommend getting the material from CA. In addition to downloading the material, you can also ask questions directly to the Telon Support people.

It does...thank you.

IMS is completely different from CICS. DLI calls are database calls and have nothing to do with transaction or DC calls. As Akatsukami indicates SPA stands for "Scratch Pad Area". From the manuals, SPA, in IMS/VS conversational processing, is a work area in main storage or on direct access storage used to retain information from the application program for executions of the application program from the same terminal.

Most fast paced high transaction processing installations do not use the SPA. Make sure that your installation allows it. Also remember that SPA and non-SPA MPP programs do not "talk" to each other.

There are some that still use a SPA - they are not high transaction processing installations and they are few. You can pass info in your linkage section if multiple programs are involved in one transaction. You can hide info on your screen - in your message. Remember that there can be many people using the same program in the region. Once you send a message and then get a message, the data contained in your buffer may not be your data.

This link might be of some more interest: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocente ... a_ref.html