The CICS CommArea is a buffer area that will contain the input to and the output from a partner CICS program. You may organize and use the CommArea as you require, to pass data between your ESL program and the CICS program. The contents of this area are specific to the particular CICS application being initiated.

When using ESL CICS Support, you must declare the CommArea in your ESL program as a structure variable in which the definition of all string fields must include a USING CLAUSE (as shown in the description of the structure is type definition in the Reference Guide). In addition, you must initialize the CommArea field of the parameter block to the address of that structure before calling CICSInitiate. (To do this, use the handle of syntax; see the Programming Guide for information about structures.)

If the CICS program requires a CommArea that contains a COBOL record, the ESL COBOL Record Support (as described in Specifying a Conditional Action Statement in the Programming Guide) may be used to define the fields within the CommArea. This contains support for COBOL PIC X(n) fields, COMP 3, COMP 5, and PIC S9(n)V(d) fields. To define a CommArea that contains other COBOL data types, you must write a COBOL data type conversion DLL.

See External Routines and Stimulus Libraries in the Programming Guide for information on how to write such a DLL.