Test Message facility

CICS message DFHFC0952 and other messages can vary in length depending on the length of its variable data. The variable data in DFHFC0952 is the "APPLID" and the "file name". When a customers APPLID or file name differ by one character than the DFHFC0952 message is forced to multiple lines. This presents a problem to customers when they set up automation to trigger on a message and the length of the message changes. Please see PMR 10127,082,000 and APAR PQ61613 which was created for a customer for message DFHRS2111.

If all the variable inserts are defined as their maximum size the message exceeds the maximum number of 113 characters that can be built into a single line and so gets edited to be written across multiple lines. If any of the variable inserts are less than their maximum size the message is built to be written into a single line.

CICS does not provide any function that will allow the customer to issue any CICS message and see how it will look on the console. I think it would be very helpful to have a way to generate test messages when the customer puts in automation requests, it would make it easy to test a message that comes out infrequently.

Please consider an enhancment to allow customers to test the message output for their automation.

Note: The WRITE OPERATOR command does not fulfill the function the customer is requesting.