Formatting and interpreting trace entries

Before you can look at the trace entries that have been sent to the various trace destinations, you need to do some formatting. The way you do the formatting varies depending on the destination. For more details of trace utility programs, see the CICS® Operations and Utilities Guide.

You can specify abbreviated, short, or extended trace formatting, to give you varying levels of information and detail in your output. Typically, abbreviated-format trace gives you one line of trace per entry; short-format provides two lines of trace per entry; extended-format provides many lines of trace per entry. The structures of the different types of trace entry are described in the sections that follow.

Most of the time, the abbreviated trace table is the most useful form of trace formatting, as you can quickly scan many trace entries to locate areas of interest.

However, in error situations, you may require more information than the abbreviated trace can provide. The short trace provides the information that is presented in the abbreviated trace, and, additionally, presents certain items that are presented in the full trace. These are:

These items of information are often very useful in the diagnosis of problems. By selecting the short format, you can gain access to this information without having to bear the processing overhead of formatting a full trace, and without having to deal with the mass of information in a full trace.

There may be occasions, however, when you need to look at extended format trace entries, to understand more fully the information given in the corresponding abbreviated and short entries, and to be aware of the additional data supplied with many extended trace entries.

The internal trace table can be formatted in one of two ways:

  1. From a CICS system dump, using the CICS print dump exit, DFHPD640.
  2. From a transaction dump, using the CICS dump utility program, DFHDU640.

Auxiliary trace can be formatted using the CICS trace utility program, DFHTU640. You can control the formatting, and you can select trace entries on the basis of task, terminal, transaction, time frame, trace point ID (single or range), dispatcher task reference, and task-owning domain. This complements the usefulness of auxiliary trace for capturing large amounts of trace data.

Note:
Trace entries can only be formatted selectively by transaction or terminal if the "transaction attach" entry (point ID XM 1102, XM level-1) for the transaction is included in the trace data set.

GTF trace can be formatted with the same sort of selectivity as auxiliary trace, using a CICS-supplied routine with the MVS™ interactive problem control system (IPCS).

Related Concepts
CICS tracing
Trace output is incorrect

Related Tasks
Interpreting extended-format CICS system trace entries
Interpreting short-format CICS system trace entries
Interpreting abbreviated-format CICS system trace entries
Interpreting user trace entries
Selecting trace destinations and related options

Related References
Dump utility program (DFHDU630)
[[ Contents Previous Page | Next Page Index ]]