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The Flow

 

The Components

The following software is involved in making this SupportPac work:

Web Browser - The web browser requests the IVPApplet Java applet in response to an 'applet' tag in a HTML file that it has read.  A web browser that supports the Java 1.1 specification is needed for the IVPApplet.  Before the browser requests the Java applet, the browser starts a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) needed to run the applet.  During my testing I used the Netscape V4.04 browser with the Java 1.1 patch, the JDK 1.1 appletviewer, and MS Explorer V4.  The Netscape browser is available at no charge from http://www.netscape.com.   The Java 1.1 patch is available from Netscape's developer pages.  The Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 is available from http://www.microsoft.com.   The JDK 1.1 appletviewer is part of JDK 1.1.

It is well beyond the scope of this SupportPac to describe how the various browsers work, but in general, the applet is downloaded to the browser, with classes to support the applet being loaded on demand.  Standard classes are supplied with the browser so they don't have to be downloaded for each applet.  Other classes can be loaded from the PC running the browser (depending on the setting of CLASSPATH), or may be requested from the web server. If your browser requires customization to reach your web server, please consult the browser documentation or your network support personnel.

Note that you can also use the appletviewer supplied with the JDK to run the IVPApplet (with network security turned off).

Web Server - A web server is needed to serve web pages (HTML) to a web browser.  If the HTML served to the browser contains an 'applet' tag, the browser will request the indicated Java program from the web server. For my testing, I used Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), but any recent web server should be capable of serving Java applets and classes. An example of the minimum HTML needed to cause the web browser to request a Java Applet:

<applet code=IVPApplet width=375 height=340>
</applet>

The applet tag can also contain other keywords like codebase=, and param (which can be used to pass parameters to a Java applet).  The width and height indicate the size of the area to be used on the browser.

Web server customization is beyond the scope of this SupportPac. Please see the documentation supplied with your web server for customization of your web server.   Note that your web server will have to be able to access the CICS Gateway for Java classes.

CICS Gateway for Java - Once the Java applet is loaded in the web browser, the applet can then request information from or send information to CICS.  Since the applet cannot communicate directly with CICS, the applet communicates to the CICS Gateway for Java.  The CICS Gateway for Java provides a communications vehicle between your Java applet and a CICS Client (except on the mainframe were the CICS Gateway for Java interfaces with EXCI). The CICS Gateway for Java extends the API supplied with the CICS Clients to the Java environment.  Due to Java security, the CICS Gateway for Java  must run on the same machine as your web server (unless you turn off security in your web browser).

The CICS Gateway for Java is well documented in the web pages that accompany the CICS Gateway for Java.  I followed the supplied directions and had no problems with the CICS Gateway for Java.  The API available with the CICS Gateway for Java is also well documented in the supplied HTML files.  See the CICS Gateway for Java for a list of platforms capable of running the CICS Gateway for Java.

I used the CICS Gateway for Java V2.0.

CICS Client - The CICS Client takes requests from the CICS Gateway for Java and sends them to the indicated CICS Server. CICS client configuration is documented in the CICS Client Administration manual.  Configuring the cicscli.ini file is well documented in the manual.  I used V2.0.3 of the CICS Client for Windows NT.

CICS Server - I used CICS for NT V4 (a.k.a. the CICS personality of Transaction Server for NT V4) at PTF set 2.   The Java applet I prepared uses ECI, so the programs running on CICS for NT are 'called'. The programs running on CICS for NT are modified versions of the CICS supplied IVP programs (modified using the CA03 SupportPac).  The CA03 SupportPac supplies a procedure and programs to change BMS oriented transactions (like the supplied IVPs) into ECI callable programs.  The programs supplied with CA03, and are:

  • VERIFYPW - to verify the password sent from the applet in a commarea.  The VERIFYPW program supplied with CA03 uses the EXEC CICS VERIFY PASSWORD command which is not supported on CICS for NT V4.  I modified the program to always return a zero return code for my testing.
  • NEWBRW - an ECI callable version of the IVP browse program
  • NEWCALL - an ECI callable version of the IVP program to inquire, add, or update

Note that you will have to install the IVP transactions - which is all documented in CA03.

JDK 1.1 - The Java Development Kit (or equivalent) is needed to compile the Java applet supplied with this SupportPac.  Additionally, the JDK contains an appletviewer if you do not want to use a web browser to run the applet.  The JDK is from Sun, is currently at level 1.1.5, and can be obtained from http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/index115.html (as of 5-21-98).

Java Applet - The .zip file that comes with this SupportPac contains the test HTML file and a file called IVPApplet.java.  The IVPApplet.java file contains the classes needed to run the applet (except those supplied with the CICS Gateway for Java). After compiling the IVPApplet.java file, you can run the resultant .class files using the JDK appletviewer, or copy the .class files to the appropriate directory to be used by your web server.

 


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This page last modified: 06/15/98

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