CICS® Configuration Manager treats export files as CICS configurations. With some restrictions, CICS Configuration Manager allows you to work with resource definitions in export files in exactly the same way that you work with resource definitions in CSD files or contexts. This enables you, for example, to copy or migrate resource definitions to an export file in exactly the same way that you copy or migrate to a CSD-based CICS configuration.
You can use CICS Configuration Manager to write export files in three formats:
All of the export file formats are QSAM files: for file allocation details, see Defining CICS configurations that refer to export files.
For example, if you choose the append option, and then you migrate change packages to that CICS configuration, the export file grows as you migrate each change package. However, if you choose the overwrite option, then each migrated change package overwrites the previous contents of the export file; similarly, if you edit a resource definition, and then enter the SAVEAS command, that single edited resource definition replaces the entire existing contents of the export file.
Use these export files to transfer resource definitions to systems that do not have CICS Configuration Manager. To import the resource definitions in these files, use the DFHCSDUP utility or the BATCHREP utility supplied with CICS Transaction Server for z/OS.
CICS Configuration Manager does not read these export file formats because, although the DFHCSDUP and BATCHREP export files created by CICS Configuration Manager are straightforward, the DFHCSDUP and BATCHREP utilities can read files that contain a variety of syntax. To provide full support for reading such files, CICS Configuration Manager would need to duplicate the complex parsing already provided by these utilities. Instead, CICS Configuration Manager provides its own readable export file format.