ASRA 1

[tubastew]

What does the acronym 'ASRA' stand for? We know what it is. We know we don't like them,we know how to fix them, but the auditor wanted to know what it stood for. My boss (20 years programming experience)did not know. He came up with a logical meaning 'Assembler Sub-Routine Abend'. My web research (3 years experience) found 'Arithmetic Shift Right A' (as opposed to ASRB). Can anyone shed any light on the subject?

 

[MarcLodge]

Tuba,
what an interesting question! At first I didn't think that it stood for anything at all as lots of other Cics abends don't seem to have any logic behind their naming (AEIA, AEI9, AEY3 etc.). Not only are there ASRA and ASRB, but there are also ASRD and ASRE, so I don't think your theory about Arithmetic shift right etc holds. All of these errors are output from the module DFHSRP which is the System Recovery Program. If there was an ASRC, I'd be inclined to guess that it stood for Abend System Recovery then a, b, c, d, or e. As there's not a ASRC, then that theory goes to pot also. That said, if it stands for anything then Abend System Recovery gets my vote.
Marc

 

[gregsimpson]

Marc,

you are both correct and incorrect. There is logic behind each and every CICS Abend Code, they were not chosen at random.

As you correctly state ASRA means ABEND SYSTEM RECOVERY. It actually means ABEND SYSTEM RECOVERY MESSAGE/REASON A.

Various parts of CICS actually raise the error depending on what you are trying to do. I will list some common ones below which I hope will demonstrate the logic behind the naming of the CICS Abend Code.

In essence the first letter 'A' stands for ABEND.

The second and third letters are from the name of the routine which raised the ABEND. In the situation of ASRA the routine is as you say DFHSRP. Hence the 4th and 5th letters of the program raising the Abend, make up the 2nd and 3rd letters of the Abend code. In this case SR. Giving ASR.

The 4th letter signifies which error has been raised as each program may have the capacity to raise more than 1 error. Hence the last letter being A,B,C,1,2 or 0 etc. In the case of ASRA message/error type A has been raised giving ASRA.

Examples below.

ATSB - Abend Temporary Storage. This is raised by DFHTSP.

Terminal Control Abends are of the format ATC? and are raised by DFHTCP.

Task Control Abends are of the format AKC? and are raised by DFHKCP. KC in this instance as TC has already been used for Terminal Control.

AICA - Abend Interval Control. This is message A from program DFHICP.

The AEI? Abend codes which you mention are from the Exec Interface and are produced by DFHEIP. Examples being AEI0(PGMIDERR I believe) and AEI1 etc.

Hope this clears up the fact that there is actually logic involved in the naming of the CICS Abend Codes. They are most certainly not all produced by DFHSRP.

To re-iterate the middle 2 letters are from the program issuing the Abend and the last letter is the particular reason it has called Abend.

Tubastew,

ask your boss for a rise, if he can get it past the auditor.

Greg