Terminal operator paging: the CSPG transaction

The CICS®-supplied paging transaction, CSPG, allows a user at a terminal to display individual pages of a logical message by entering page retrieval requests. Your systems staff define the transaction identifiers for retrieval and other requests supported by CSPG in the system initialization table; sometimes program function keys are used to minimize operator effort.

Retrieval can be sequential (next page or previous page) or random (a particular page, first page, last page). In addition to page retrieval, CSPG supports the following requests:

Page copy
Copy the page currently on display to another terminal. BMS reformats the page if the target terminal has a different page size or different formatting characteristics, provided the terminal is of a type supported by BMS.
Message query
List the messages waiting to be displayed at the terminal with CSPG. The list contains the BMS-assigned message identifier and, for a routed message, the message title, if the sender provided one.
Purge message
Delete the logical message.
Page chaining
Suspend the current CSPG transaction after starting to display a message, execute one or more other transactions, and then resume the original CSPG display. An intervening transaction may itself produce BMS or terminal output. If this output is a BMS logical message created with the PAGING and RELEASE or RETAIN options, this message is "chained" to the original one, and the operator can switch between one and the other.
Switch to autopage
Switch from NOAUTOPAGE display mode to AUTOPAGE mode. For terminals that combine a keyboard and hard copy output, this allows an operator to purge or print a message based on inspection of specific pages.

The process of examining pages continues until the operator signals that the message can be purged. CSPG provides a specific request for this purpose, as noted above. If the SEND PAGE command contained the option OPERPURGE, this request is the only way to delete the message and get control back from CSPG.

If OPERPURGE is not present, however, any input from the terminal that is not a CSPG request is interpreted as a request to delete the message and end CSPG. If the message was displayed with the RETAIN option, the non-CSPG input that terminates the display can be accessed with a BMS or terminal control RECEIVE when the task resumes execution. See the CICS Supplied Transactions manual for detailed information about the CSPG transaction.

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