The PUT, GET, MOVE, and DELETE CONTAINER commands used to build and interact with a channel are similar to those used in CICS® business transaction services (BTS) applications. (For information about BTS, see the CICS Business Transaction Services manual.) Thus, programmers with experience of BTS will find it easy to use containers in non-BTS applications. Furthermore, server programs that use containers can be called from both channel and BTS applications. An example of this is shown in Figure 53.
As shown in Figure 53, a program that issues container commands can be used, without change, as part of a channel application or as part of a BTS activity.
For a program to be used in both a channel and a BTS context, the container commands that it issues must not specify any options that identify them as either channel or BTS commands. The options to be avoided on each of the container commands are:
When a container command is executed, CICS analyzes the context (channel, BTS, or neither) in which it occurs, in order to determine how to process the command. To determine the context, CICS uses the following sequence of tests: